


If Our Love is Wrong

by sweethaleia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bottom Tony Stark, Character Death Fix, Comfort/Angst, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt Tony Stark, Lots of Angst, M/M, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Sharing a Bed, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24690661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweethaleia/pseuds/sweethaleia
Summary: Steve and Tony go back in time, precisely in 1970, to get the space stone and the Pym particles, but because of a miscalculation, everything goes wrong. Stuck in a timeline that they don't belong, they end up finding out that they have feelings for each other, all while trying to find a way back home.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 20
Kudos: 142





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In advance, I'd like to apologize if you find any grammar or spelling mistakes in the text. English is one of my foreign languages, and even though I've been studying it for 7 years, I'm aware that I still make some silly mistakes.

_Camp Lehigh Army Base,_

_New Jersey, 1970._

They appeared in the Army Base laundromat. It was empty, for their luck, because two men coming from nowhere would scare anyone, it also would be a hell of weird since one of them was wearing a SHIELD security modern uniform and the other, the Captain America's suit and shield.

Tony and Steve look around the laundromat, the wash machines working in a unison and noise sound. It was dark there, but some flashes of morning light bathed the place, in the deep part of the laundromat they could see some dry clothes hanging in there.

"Well, it seems like we're borrowing some clothes," says Tony sarcastic.

The super soldier didn't reply, instead, Steve walks there and throw a white buttoned shirt, a lab coat, and a tie to Tony, while he got himself an Army uniform, the traditional green khakis. Miraculously, the billionaire didn't complain at all, he just got the clothes and started to dress up. Steve turns his back and does the same, but he can feel Tony's gaze on his back and he can't hold his smile, even though he knows that the brunet can't see his face. In a matter-of-fact, the genius can't see a lot of him. He wishes Tony could see beyond, he wishes Tony could see Steve Rogers. The super soldier turns back.

"You're ready?" He asks putting the low-pulled cap and mirrored sunglasses he had just found. Tony nods, takes his own clothes, and hides it, so when they finally get the tesseract and the Pym particles they could get their clothes back and go back to 2023.

Steve went first, he opened the door of the laundromat, there was no one that can be seen, but they can hear people talk, gunshots practice, soldiers marching turning the corner.

"You weren't actually born here, right?" says Tony referring to the sign outside the base that says birthplace of Captain America.

"The idea of me was." Tony is looking around, he seems clumsy, Steve never thought that one day he would think in Tony Stark as clumsy, in fact, he just seems out of his time.

"All right. If I was SHIELD and I wanted to hide my quasi-fascistic black site, where would I hide it?"

"In plain sight," Steve replies to the question. He nods to the base saying "munitions". There are two men in a suit next to it, one of them took out a card opening the door and both come in there. Tony touches his glasses activating the x-rays. He saw the two men going down in an elevator, revealing at least twenty floors underground.

Tony glances to Steve, he lifts a brow presumptuously, he starts to walk, getting closer to the warehouse, but Steve stops him, holding his arm.

"What are you doing?" he mouths skeptical.

"What, Cap? I thought you trust me." The genius says. Steve sighed and let go of Tony. He approaches a nanotech device to the card reader beside the door and it opens. They got in the elevator.

On the second floor, a female agent of SHIELD got in the elevator too. She keeps looking awkwardly to the them, alternating her glance to the document in her hands and to them. Steve lowers his cap and Tony steps forward attempting to cover the blond's face. The doors open on the fourth floor and the genius steps out.

"Good luck in that mission, Captain." He says. The Captain glances up.

"Good luck in your... project, doctor." The elevator doors close.

-

Steve keeps his cap down all the way to the sixth floor. However, the agent seems interesting on him, she looks right into him.

"You're new here?" She asks. Steve raises his head attempting to seem a bit confident.

"Not exactly." He answers, maybe a little too quickly. The doors open and the supersoldier turns to her. "Have a good day, agent..." he tries to read the name on her badge. "Agent Rose." Turn away, it just works to let the woman even more suspicious.

Steve follows his way, he needed to find out where Hank Pym's laboratory was, so he could get the particles they needed to go back to 2023. He walks reading the names on the door, Armin Zola, Howard Stark, names he already knew, and a few others that he had never listened to, then he found it.

The lights of the laboratory were off, it seems no one was in there, he reaches the knob, closed. Steve frowned confused, Tony said he had a vague idea, then that he was almost sure, and frankly, Steve trusted in Tony so hard, he couldn't be wrong, right? Maybe Doctor Pym was out for lunch or something else.

A door opens in the corridor, and Howard Stark appears, he looks to both sides of the place. Quickly Steve turns his back to him, but it doesn't seem work, well apparently the odds were not in his favor today.

"Hey" Howard shouts. Steve turns halfway on his heels. "Are you looking for Pym?" He stops for a moment, and the complete with "Captain."

"Yes, doctor." He replies promptly. "I guess he maybe is out for lunch." Stark frowned to his answer.

"Captain, he left two weeks ago. He is out of the country." He took a step forward in his direction, then completes. "Something about a congress in Switzerland."

 _Shit_ , Steve thought. Damn you, Stark.

"Yes. Sure, he must've mentioned it." The soldier waved off while putting his hands inside of the pants' pockets. "Do you have an idea when he'll be back?" Stark nods negatively, he seems a little suspicious.

"Well, good day, Captain..." He looks down at the name written on the uniform. "Horseo." Then, he waves off turning his back and heading to the elevator."

 _Shit, shit, shit_. Fuck you, Stark. Steve curses.

Suddenly, the same woman who was with them in the elevator turns the corner accompanied by two other security agents.

"Are you sure you've never seen either of these men before?" asks one of the guards. The agents nods negatively and emphatically.

"One of them had a hippie beard." She says like she had just remembered. They head into the elevator, the guard starts talking over the walkie-talkie.

"We need every available agent to sub-level 6. We have a potential breach."

Steve turns his back looking for an empty room, he spots the next, the room was dark and it seems empty, without second-guessing, he slides in the room. He closes the door behind him and moves forward to the desk in the room, there was a notebook, some documents with SHIELD ensign, a couple of pens and a frame with a black and white picture of him, in the early forties when he got in the army, received the serum, and fought in the World War II. Steve frowned his brows and turned to look at the name on the office's door.

_Margareth Carter. Peggy._

In the back of the office, there is a glass that separates the office from another room, the blinds were down. Steve watches Peggy got in the room on the other side talking with another woman. It's been a long time. So long. It was weird seeing the woman that he had fallen in love a few years ago, now she just looks a remind of his past. He was in love with someone else. Someone that couldn't correspond to his feelings, but he couldn't stop caring about him either. Steve sighed.

He hears the guards steps outside the door, then he turns on his heels and sees the corridor empty. That's his call. He exits the office and moves fast to the elevator. Thankfully, it's empty and it goes like this all the way up. Steve finds himself back in the ground, the midday light blinds him for a second, till he puts the mirrored glasses back on. He moves to the corner where they came from and waits for Tony. He appears a few minutes later carrying a briefcase and talking with Howard Stark, his own father.

They bid farewell, and Steve nods in the philanthropist's direction. Tony looks at him incredulously, like he's not really believing Steve is asking if he got the tesseract. Even Steve can't believe he's asking that, of course, Tony got it. But the billionaire confirms pointed to the briefcase in his left hand. Tony approaches him.

"What's wrong, Capsicle?" He furrowed. "You look like you ate something and didn't like the taste." Steve puts his hand on the genius back, leading him back to the laundromat.

"Let's talk somewhere private."

The laundromat is empty just like when they first got in there, the wash machines working at full, at least, the noise would drown out the conversation.

"He's not here." Steve started putting one his hand on his hips and looking to the brunet. Tony understood right away.

"What do you mean?" The genius asks approaching the other man.

"He's out of the country, that was Howard says. Apparently, he left two weeks ago. There's no way we're going back." Steve isn't scolding him, Tony knows, but he is still blaming himself. It's all his fault. "We both knew it could happen, Tony."

"What are we gonna do now? We have the fucking stone, but we can go back." Tony laughs ironically.

"We'll find a way, Tony." The answer just makes the billionaire laughs more.

"Don't. Don't come with this optimism." Tony answers taking out the fucking tie and throwing it nowhere to be seen.

"We will." Steve approaches and holds Tony arms squeezing it slightly. "We always do. This time is not gonna be different. We just need to wait till Pym comes back from the trip." Tony let out a sigh, Steve let go of him and Tony rubs his hand over his own chest, where the arc reactor used to be, a gesture that Steve had noticed a few times.

"Okay. You're right. I'm freaking out." Tony turns around and then turns back to Steve. "We better find a place to eat, then."

"I know a good one if it still opens." They smile at each other.

-

The snack bar Steve takes them is not so far from the Army Base, and it still opens. The front of the store has an old charm, and it changed considerably since the last time Steve has been there, it seems, of course, more modern than in 1941.

They took a table next to the windows, they sit in front of each other. Tony puts the briefcase by his side. Soon, a waitress comes to take their order, she doesn't take her eyes off of Steve. Tony clenches his teeth, he feels so bothered, he is so pissed with the waitress for drag Steve so much attention. He rolls his eyes, he shouldn't be jealous, Steve and him are just teammates, nothing else, despite Tony's hidden feelings.

She goes away. Tony and Steve remain in silent. The snack bar is empty, except for them and a guy drinks his huge chocolate milkshake. The waitress comes back 10 minutes later, putting their milkshakes and cheese balls on the table. They don't say anything to each other.

Tony observes Steve quietly. The super soldier seems absent-minded, lost in his own thoughts. Being stuck here sure makes Steve think in everything he had lost those 70 years frozen in ice, also, the whole situation they are in. They can't go back, at least, not now. They would spend a few days here in the 1970 New Jersey. Steve keeps moving the straw in circles inside of the milkshake. Tony frowns.

"What's wrong, Cap? You are strangely quiet since we left the base." Well, Tony knew there are plenty of things going wrong here. "You didn't even yell with me to fuck everything up."

Steve glances up Tony.

"I'm not upset with you, Tony. If that's what you think." He sighed.

"So, what's the matter?" Tony asks again. Steve hesitates, but then he gave in.

"I saw Peggy today."

Tony should've known, or at least, guessed. Peggy Carter, the same woman he grew up with was the woman that Steve always loved, that he still loves, actually, and Steve, ironically, is the man he loves. Tony narrows his eyes. That's confused.

"Oh." He lets out, he felt ridiculous right now. "How was it? You wanna talk about it?"

"It's not a big deal." Steve shrugs. "I-It's just... It was weird seeing her again after all these years. It doesn't seem right."

"Why not? You still love her, right? If we're going to get stuck here, you could try again. You know, have that life, family." Tony is awful giving advice.

Steve raises his head and fins Tony's brown almond eyes, he stares for a long time before sighs again. He doesn't reply to his question, and Tony also doesn't push him, instead, they eat in silence, the only sound in the place comes from an old radio on the counter.

"Pym Technologies stays in San Francisco. We should head there as soon as we can." Tony says calling Steve's attention.

"Do you think there are Pym particles in there?"

"No. But it is probably the best chance we have to go back home sooner. Hank is going there when he comes back."

"How do you know?"

"That's where Janet lives." Steve lift a brow without understand Tony's point. "His fiancée. They'll get married at the end of the year." Steve agrees.

"We don't know when he's going back," The blond asks

"Well, you said he left two weeks ago, these events don't take long. Perhaps, he's already back, but didn't come to the base." The soldier doesn't reply, instead, Steve watches Tony eating carefully, even so, he hasn't finished his own meal, when the brunet finishes it, he called the waitress. Tony frowns and nods to the blond's meal, but Steve just waves off, he wasn't so hungry, anyway. The waitress brings the bill and both men take out their wallet.

"I'll pay this one," Steve said.

"No, I-" Tony doesn't finish the sentence, cause Steve interrupts him.

"I'll pay for the meal, you pay for the hotel room, alright?" Tony doesn't even have the time to contest before Steve pays for it.

They exit the establishment. There was only a long road in front of them, the Army Base was not so far, but there was not a hotel to be seen.

"You know any hotel nearby?" Tony asks.

"I guess a see one when we're coming to eat." Steve sighed.

Well, Steve wasn't wrong at all, they walk two blocks away and there is a sign indicating the hotel, it wasn't so fancy, but it would be enough to pass the night. They enter the place, the only light source was the doors opened, the hall smelled of mold and there was a slight dust resting in the furniture.

Behind the counter, there was a man, he was short, had grey hair and a mustache, he wears a pair of big glasses, and his smile is welcoming. Tony approaches him and requests two rooms. The man seems a little bit disappointed for, probably, lost two customers.

"I'm sorry, sir. All the single and twin rooms are occupied. We only have double rooms."

 _You gotta be kidding me_ , Steve thought, sharing a bed with Tony wouldn't be so bad, he, actually, would like it, even though he knew the brunet didn't correspond his feelings. Tony turns to him.

"You don't mind, right?" Tony asks lifting a brow. Steve nods negatively.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, angst Tony in this chapter. I hope you liked it!

Steve was aware of Tony's body lying by his side. It was comforting to have a known face when he seemed so lost in this brand new world, in 1970, which remembers him of how lost he had felt when he woke up in 2011. At least, now he has Tony here, even if only as a friend.

Steve turns his body to face Tony's back and realizes that Tony's sleep seems a little tormented, he was shaking a bit and mumbling something incomprehensible. Steve didn't know if he should wake him up, he probably should, because he doesn't like seeing Tony suffering this way and not doing anything.

However, the brunet didn't take long in that apprehensive state, he woke up and got up in jolt and sitting at the edge of the bed, his breath was heavy and shaky. He ran his fingers through his hair while attempted to regularize his breath. Tony was having an anxiety attack. The blond knew about Tony's PTSD, but he never really has been present to witness one of his crises. Certainly, because Tony spent most of his time in his lab, it was this way in the Avengers Tower and he kept that habit when they had moved to the Avengers Compound.

Also, Tony wasn't the kind that talk about his feelings openly. He surely talked with his teammates when they're all together, he jokes and teases everyone around him. But when it comes to talking about him, Tony always went to Natasha and Bruce. In the beginning, Steve felt hurt, he wanted to Tony talks with him, trust him, even though he knew that he doesn't deserve it. He, himself, never talk about him either. Maybe, he had treated Tony too harshly those years, he thought that pushing the billionaire away maybe, maybe he would stop having feelings for his teammate, because that was what Tony always would be with him, after all, Tony is straight, right?

So, Steve puts a hand on the genius' shoulder and squeeze it softly. Tony had his back to Steve, so the blond doesn't see when the philanthropist closes his eyes with his touch. It is warm. Tony sighed in relief. The gesture shouldn't be that comfortable.

"Tony, are you alright?" Tony nods affirmatively, and Steve notices the billionaire's shoulders starting to relax under his touch."Nightmare?"

"Just a... bad feeling," Tony answers shrugging.

Nevertheless, Steve doesn't feel convinced. Of course, there is something bothering him. So, Steve slides in the bed sitting by his side. The blond was a little taller than him, which oblige Tony to raise his gaze to find Steve's marvelous blue eyes.

"You can talk to me, Tony," Steve reassures him squeezing the philanthropist's left knee.

"I-I-" The brunet stuttered, while his eyes lower and stop on Steve's pink lips.

Tony hesitates, even though he trusts Steve. He knows he can talk with Steve.

"I'm worried because when... We can't go back and I have no idea how we're gonna do it. Th-That's all my fault. If I-I hadn't lost that fucking and stupid cube we would already be back, and everyone living their lives as they want to. It was a fucking ordinary mission and I fucked it up." Steve stops him putting a finger on Tony's lips, making him shut up. Tony was overthinking, and also in the middle of an anxiety attack, he was just worsening things to himself.

Steve looks to the brunet with such soft eyes while his hand stirs back and forth on his back.

"Tony," he says. "We will come back, there is nothing to worry about. I know I'm saying this right now and I'm not trying to play the optimistic. I need you to trust me, because I trust you and I'm sure we will find a solution together, we're already working on it! " Steve says with a kind smile. "I also know you too well to know that tomorrow morning you will still be worried." The super soldier sighed. "This is not your fault. We knew the risks and we decided to accept them. We made this together."

 _Damn, how can he be so gold with words_?, Tony thought, now feeling less tense than before.

"Thank you, Steve," Tony blinks timidly and takes the soldier's hand gripping it reassuringly. He could feel the tremble, once consuming his bones, going away and his breathing reaching regular levels, syncing with Steve's.

"Anytime, you can always count on me." Steve looks deep in those brown eyes. Tony nods and lets go of his hand. Steve goes back to his side of the back, turning off the lamp by his side. Tony lays down and quickly falls asleep again. He doesn't move again, apparently in a peaceful and deep sleep, so Steve turns his back and closes the eyes.

-

In the morning, when Tony wakes up Steve isn't by his side anymore, there are only wrinkled sheets and his smell left behind, though his side is still warm, so it's not a long time since the blond got up, Tony's suspects are right when he hears the shower on. He lays down again putting a pillow on his face to drown out his scream. There he was, trapped in the past with Steve Rogers, the man that his father always talked about non-stop, the man that was his teammate, the same man who he had a crush since... always? He had no idea when he started to develop feelings for his teammate.

Steve had met Peggy yesterday, just because of it the soldier had been scattered the rest of the day. _What if..._? No, he shouldn't let his mind playing tricks with him again, even if Tony felt all of his insecurities growing in his chest all at once, he shouldn't be jealous. Steve never really liked him, no even as a teammate.

Tony was dragged out of his thoughts when he heard the bathroom lock switched off, revealing a supersoldier shirtless, exhibiting his amazing chest and muscles, wearing the military pants from yesterday with his blond gold hair wet, drops falling from his forehead. _Was he in heaven? Has he just died and nobody told him?_ , he thought attempting to clear his mind from dirty images.

"What time is it?" he asked sitting on the bed, his gaze resting upon Steve.

"Morning, you too." Steve twitched his nose. "Are you feeling better?" Tony rolls his eyes in response and gets up.

"Yeah. Morning." He replies heading to the bathroom.

"By the way," Steve starts saying, Tony turns to look at him from the doorway. "It's 08:30 a.m. Better hurry up if we want to catch breakfast." The brunet doesn't reply, he closes the door, and Steve just heard the water running inside.

When Tony got out of the bath, he was fully dressed. Steve wasn't in the room anymore, which means that he was probably waiting for him downstairs. Tony takes the intelligent glasses on the nightstand and puts them on, also grabbing the lab coat he was wearing yesterday, with so much happening at once, they had forgotten to collect their clothes in the army base laundromat, now they must come back for collecting them and also learning more about Hank Pym whereabouts, in order to take the stones to 2023.

Tony reached the hotel lobby and one of the staff led him to the restaurant where he spotted Steve, because Captain America is not the kind of guy that pass unnoticed. Tony pulls a chair in front of Steve and sits down, the blond puts look at him upon the newspaper, then a waiter approaches of their table, putting a plateau filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, and cinnamon rolls, the man served them black coffee indicating the sugar on the plateau, in case they needed it, both men thank him and the waiter leaves. Steve puts the newspaper aside and folds it.

"Did you know that the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic on a raft in 57 days?" Steve says while pointing the news on the paper, he's trying to make conversation, so Tony nods negatively before start to serve himself while Steve follows him doing the same.

Tony looks around, there were many families and friends hosted there since they're in mid-July, vacation time, yay!

Both took a little of everything from the plateau and they eat in silence for a while. Tony sips that coffee served and swallows the black liquid unwillingly, making his best to not spit it out. The coffee is awful and tasteless, so he puts it aside. Steve, on the other hand, drinks only water and his scrambled eggs peacefully.

"We need to go back to the base," Tony speaks suddenly. He looks up to Steve. "We need to get our stuff back... Uh... I mean our clothes." He was on the edge of breakdown again, he was already hyperventilating, this whole situation surely got in his neves.

Steve sits upright staring deeply into Tony's brown almonds eyes. The soldier sighs and Tony feels frustrated, he can't have another breakdown in front of Steve, so he shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, he only opens his again when he felt Steve's thumb caressing his wrist. It's a gentle and relaxing touch and it gives courage to Tony lifts his gaze to that pair of blue eyes.

"Well, we sure need to go back. I thought that... Maybe, we can get some information about Hank." Steve shrugs. "Also, we can't wear those clothes, anyway." The blond is smiling gently to him.

"Yeah, uh, you're right," Tony says looking across the restaurant, but then he blinks a few times. "Excuse me? What do you mean we can't-" Steve cuts him off.

"They are too modern. We need local clothes."

"Ugh. Ahn, okay, then." Tony stutters. "But we're going to get them back anyway, I like mines, don't you like Captain America suits?" The billionaire lifts a brow and Steve chuckles. "We need to shop and I'm sure none of these stores accepts a credit card here, because we only have that money."Steve nods.

Tony is worried. Steve can see that clearly, a mix of emotions was stamped on the brunet's face. He is scared, he is lost. And Steve was feeling this way too, but he already has been through there, he knew he would adapt to the situation and he needed to help Tony to do that too.

They finished their meal in silence, then Tony paid for the hotel room while Steve holds tight the briefcase with the tesseract. They wouldn't stay for one more night. There was nothing else that New Jersey could offer to them, they needed to head to San Francisco as soon as they can, so if they are traveling they would need as much information about Hank Pym as they could learn, and also to get supplies and, maybe, some money. They exit the hotel making their way to the Army Base once more.

The two men walk silently, both lost in their thoughts. This is a hell of a situation that they dive in and Tony couldn't stop thinking about his family, though he knew that Steve couldn't either. Did the avengers get the other stones? Were they safe? How much time has passed in 2023? They were supposed to be back in less than one minute. _Shit_! Tony thought. He couldn't get rid of the idea that all of this was his fault. If he hadn't lost the tesseract, if Loki hadn't caught it, if he didn't have that stupid idea of going back in 1970, if... So many "ifs". He is always the one that screws up, he deserves all of this crap happening to him. Tony feels a lump growing in his throat.

They were crossing the street now, the Army Base on the opposite side, when a car turned the corner at fast speed. Tony was too absent-minded to notice it. He probably would be hit and dead now if he hasn't felt someone pulling the lab coat he was wearing, he bumped his back against Steve's chest, the blond suddenly hit by an adrenaline spike, Steve crossed his arm in front of Tony, holding him tight against his own chest in a protective way, pulling him back to the sidewalk. The car kept his way down on the road, everything had happened so fast.

"Those punks are in the neighborhood again" a man yells to his wife from the window above their head before shouting "I'm going to call the police." One of the young guys just showed the middle finger to the old man, an act of full disrespect. "Are you okay, sir?" The man shouts.

Tony takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second, feeling the tightness of Steve's arm dissipates when he let go of Tony. The brunet glances up to the old man on the window.

"I'm fine, sir. Thank you for asking." He was hyperventilating, his body wasn't calming down the way he expects. He looks to Steve almost claiming for help, he had helped him to calm down last night, so maybe, maybe he could help him again.

Steve was staring at him, pale, a frowning of concern between his brows, his lips in a thin line. He puts a hand on Tony shoulder just like he did last night.

"Tony, are you okay? What's in your head?" The genius opened his mouth to answer, there are a lot of things he could say to Steve. He could tell him how much he was panicking with all of this happening, how he was the biggest problem in the team, because Tony is so reckless and selfish. Though, it wasn't Steve's problem, and right now he couldn't be a burden to Steve, because it was him who put the blond in this situation and he has to fix it. The blond shouldn't have to handle Tony either, he shouldn't have to comfort him, so instead, Tony sighed.

"It's nothing. Nothing to worry about." _Just some paranoia growing inside of my head_ , Tony thought. Then, he crosses the street, this time looking attentively to both sides, but Steve stays where he is, so Tony turns on his heels from the other side staring curiously to the soldier. "Aren't you coming?" He asks nodding in the direction of the base. The soldier didn't answer but followed him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy Carter and Jealous!Tony

They got in the warehouse named "munitions" easily. They went down alone in the elevator until the fifth floor, where they stepped out. Tony didn't say a word about what just happened, neither did Steve, even though the blond was still looking at him with concern stamped over his face. Tony wonders why Steve even cares, the billionaire has been close to death a dozen times, been ran over by a car was definitely the least creative way for dying.

They had a plan since Steve and Tony were almost caught like intruders the last time. First, they would be apart, Tony would break in Pym's lab to seek for any clue of how they could find the scientist as soon as possible, so they would be able to get their asses back to 2023 and avenger the Earth. No, not only the Earth, the whole fuck universe.

Steve wasn't surprised when Tony pulls some kind of tool out of his pocket and opened the door of the lab so effortlessly, that genius probably brought all his lab inside of his pockets, all those nanotech things were crazy, and Steve thought that he would never catch on it, no matter how many times Tony had explained to him how it works.

The hallway was empty. Tony got in and closed the door behind him, in the meanwhile Steve walks to the corner of the hallway, both sides were almost empty, there are some women working in a room, and two men talking while they ate their brunch, they were too distant and too distracted to notice Steve.

Inside of the lab, Tony stirs in documents on the table, most of them filled with chemicals instructions and equations, none of them were really finished, so far as Tony read them. The deposit of the Pym particles should be was empty, of course, the alchemist wouldn't let something so powerful, and dangerous if it falls on the wrong hands, exposed, he probably took it with him. Tony opens another drawer, he moves the paper inside carefree, then a light green envelope caught his attention, it was already opened, so Tony read it.

Apparently, the congress that Hank Pym was invited was a global one, according to the invitation, scientists from all over the world were invited to present their projects and ideas in a one-month event, which means that was a huge event, and they would take, at least, two more weeks to going back, since Hank left two weeks ago, and they were almost half one week. Tony sighed heavily.

"Did you find something?" Steve asked through the comm.

"Yeah, I-I did. Guess I have bad news."

Outside, Steve sighed, probably it wasn't so bad as Tony said, he knew Tony has the habit of overreacting. Then, someone bumped on his shoulder abruptly, he didn't realize the high heels steps of the woman, he was caught off guard. The woman turns to apologize, a surprised look on her face, and Steve swears mentally, he shouldn't have to be seen, this wasn't supposed to happen.

"Steve?" Peggy Carter says almost in shock.

"Peggy" The blond affirms awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

What came next caught him totally off the guard, and also unpredictable, when Peggy tiptoed to reach his lips and kissed him. The odds were definitely against Steve because that was the exact moment that Tony chose to get out of Hank's lab and get a full sight of Steve and Peggy kissing, the blond took a step back and look to Tony.

"Tony" Steve said taking a step forward in Tony's direction while Peggy observed the whole scene.

Then, Tony put his best face on, Steve didn't have to know that he was hurt. They're nothing. Steve didn't owe any explanation to him and the soldier already have broken Tony's heart a few times, this wasn't different, even though it hurts the same way. Also, Tony remembered himself, he is good hiding his feeling, he had done it a thousand times and no one ever noticed or cared about, well, except for Natasha, that triple imposter seemed to know more about him than himself. So, Tony stepped forward.

"I got it." He said showing the greenish envelope in his hand. Steve's gaze change between Tony's face and the envelope.

"I-Sorry" Steve mumbled, but Tony didn't understand why Steve was apologizing, there was nothing to apologize for. Behind him, Peggy furrowed.

"Excuse me, can anyone explain what is happening here?" She asked with a confused look.

Steve turns to face her, he didn't know how to react. Peggy thought he was dead, what could he explain to her but the truth? They were messing with that timeline so bad, none of this was supposed to happen. Then Steve turns back to Tony who was standing in the same place, his face now showing that he was a little upset.

"I guess we're improvising."

-

They led Peggy to the laundromat, at least there they are sure that no one would see or even hear them. Steve moves his hands nervously, clenching them against each other, he took out the cap and looks to Peggy who had leaned against a washing machine, her arms firmly crossed. Tony puts the briefcase aside and goes to the place where they hid the clothes yesterday, he found an empty and dusty bag in the corner of the room and put the clothes inside, zipping it with an annoying noise. No one talks in the room while Steve observes Tony, he can say that the philanthropist is upset, even though he tries to hide it without direct his gaze to Steve. The blond just wanted to fix the mess he'd made, explain to the billionaire what happened, even knowing that he didn't owe any explanation.

Steve took a deep breath feeling his chest tightening, he hates to see Tony upset, it is even worse knowing that he is the cause of Tony being hurt. After that fight in the german airport a few years ago, he had sworn that he would never hurt Tony again. Steve exhales. He guesses he just had broken it already. _Fuck_. He needed to tell Tony about his feeling, as soon as possible, he needed to confess it, otherwise, this lack of knowledge about Tony's own feelings would drive him crazy.

Peggy stands there switching her gaze between Tony and Steve, a frown between her brows, then she narrows her eyes.

"So, will anyone explain to me?" She asks with a remarkable British accent. Steve lets out a sigh, he has no idea from where he should begin. Peggy rests her stare over the blond. "You're not dead." She constates. "What the bloody hell is happened in that plane crash? I thought you were dead all of these years." She is pissed, oh, she is really pissed. She could even punch Steve on his perfects white teeth, but she wants an explanation first."

"It's..." _What is it?_ , Steve thinks. "It's a long story." He finally says sounding uncertain, which makes Peggy lifts a brow questioning.

Tony rolled his eyes.

"Okay, lemme make it shorter, then." Tony interfered. "Capsicle here," He points to Steve. "Stay stuck in the ice for over 70 years, he was found and awaken in 2011, where he fought for SHIELD, joined the avengers when we fought aliens coming from outer space, a lot of others less important fights too, and here we are trying to defeat or stop, I don't even know anymore, another villain from outer space. But I fucked everything it up and we are trapped in the '70s.!" Tony let everything out at once and inhales deeply attempting to recover his breath.

"That's not the story, there is much more." Steve frowned. Tony chuckles balancing his head negatively, and Steve just prepared himself for the sarcastic sentence that will come next.

"Want a better version, Cap? Tell her your fucking extend version, then, it's not like we don't have anything to do today." He clenches his teeth. "You know what? Maybe, you want to stay here, right? You just found what you've been regretting these past 11 years. That's it. Go ahead, Captain America." Tony stands his hands up and turns on his heels leaving the place.

Steve takes a step forward, but the door slammed behind the genius' back. Tony was being mean because that was the only way he knew how to react when he was in pain, it was his self-defense, but Steve wouldn't let the billionaire pushes him away, not anymore.

"He is upset" Peggy comments. "Is that true what he told me?" Steve turns to face her, trying to contain the impulse to go behind Tony and checking if he's okay.

"Yes, it is," Steve sighed "SHIELD found me in the ice, then I-I joined The Avengers Initiative, a project designed to reunite the most remarkable people on Earth. Well, that what Fury used to say," The last sentence Steve mumbled to himself. "So we could fight what they can't."

"You mean... Aliens?" A skeptical gaze passes through Peggy's face.

"Yes. They-they exist. Seems impossible, but they do," Steve leaned against a washing machine while crossed his arms in front of his chest. "One of them, Thanos. He snapped 50% of humanity in 2019, he said he wanted a better world, a perfectly balanced world. We couldn't stop him on time." Sadness was showing up on his face. "Only now, we found a way to reverse it, maybe." He shrugged. "Tony was the one who built a... Time machine? So we could restore the Infinity stones before Thanos. I-I know this a mess, Peggy, it's insane. I know what it must seem to you, I can't force you to believe me, but... That's the truth."

Steve looked down facing his shoes, he only heard Peggy's high heels approaching him, she took his chin in her hand and lifted it up so she could look straight into his eyes.

"I believe you, Steve. I'm sorry it happened to you." Steve nods. Then, Peggy points her chin toward the door, asking "Who is he? A time machine? That's unbelievable." She blinks impressed, and Steve smiles.

"He's Tony. Tony Stark." Peggy's eyes widened by the mention of the brunet's last name."I-I have to check on Tony," He finally says walking out of the laundromat, Peggy follows right behind him.

Tony was leaned against the wall next to the door, the lab coat folded upon his left arm, and his glasses hanging from the collar of his shirt, a few bottoms opened now. The genius turns, he gave in, he's sick of hiding, so he directs a sadness look upon the couple.

"I'm-I'm sorry for..." for what? He screwed up like he always does, he yelled with Steve and Peggy because he was jealous, that's utterly childish. Oh God, Captain America was really messing with his feelings. "...yelling." He concludes.

"It's okay," Steve muttered.

"No need to apologize. You two have been under too much pressure lately." Peggy says calmly. "Is there something I can do to help you?"

Steve's eyes were still laying on the brunet, studying carefully his reaction. What if Tony... No, Steve couldn't create expectations, so he sweeps these thoughts away from his mind.

"We need to go downtown." The blond finally answers. "A ride would be welcome."

-

Their ride downtown was strangely quiet, not that kind of uncomfortable silence, just the silence's type that they were trying to absorb everything that had just happened. Generally, the silence was broken by Steve and Peggy talking about their lives after the war and nowadays, Tony remained in silence for the most part of the path, occasionally answering some questions made by Peggy, who was being so gentle that he felt bad for being such an asshole with her. He shouldn't have poured his chagrin on her, it wasn't her fault that he was in love with Steve, and Steve loved her.

Well, downtown showed itself crowded. Families walking happily on the sidewalks, stores are fulls, there was a large queue to the ice cream truck. Tony looks around the street looking for a pawnshop that we had in the hotel's map of the city, and catch a glance at one right around the corner.

"I'm going in," Tony says to Steve, but he didn't wait for the blond's reaction, already walking down the street.

Steve let out a sigh of distress. He needed to do a proper apology to the brunet, or at least, have a conversation about what he saw. Peggy switched her stare between the two men.

"You care about him" That's not a question. "More than a friend. You have strong feelings for him, you should tell him." Her expression softens.

"Peggy, I-I..."

"You don't need to explain, Steve. I'm glad you found someone." She smiles smoothly. "Just be careful, both of you, a lot of people won't understand and they can't be less tolerant to it now." She shrugs.

"I'm glad to see you again." Steve smiles.

"Me too." She tiptoes, a gentle smile on her face, and drops a kiss on the blond's left cheek. "Goodbye, Steve." She steps on the car, she doesn't glance back to him, and he watches the car disappears down in the road.

"Goodbye, Peggy," Steve muttered to himself.

Then, he turns around and spots the pawnshop that Tony got in. When he steps inside he realizes that Tony is having a heated discussion with the owner.

"Oh, C'mon, pal. This watch is worth more than that you're offering. It's a Louis Moinet!" Tony says cocky.

"I give you one and a half," Says the owner.

"Two and a half," Tony argues narrowing his eyes. Steve smirks, he knows Tony doesn't give in so easily.

"One seven and we don't talk about it anymore."

"Two," Tony smirks. The owner rolls his eyes finally giving in.

"Fine. Deal."Tony looks to Steve with a brow lifted, but then his face softens and he smiles at the sight of the blond.

"What? Two thousand?" Steve frowns asking. Tony looks at him indignantly.

"No! Two million, Capsicle." Steve's jaw drops, stunning.

They came trading Tony's expensive watch, even though Steve had said to the brunet do not do that, they'll find a solution for the money problem. But Tony rolled his eyes saying that he is not the kind attached to things, they needed the money and with that watch, they could survive for months. So, Steve agreed. Now, that Pym would be back in one week and a half, they would really need money, they needed to get to San Francisco and settle in as soon as possible.

They exit the shop with another briefcase in Tony's right hand, while he carried the briefcase with the Tesseract in his left hand.

"Better put it in a bank. It's not a good idea to do a road trip with this amount of money." Tony says lifting the package. Steve agreed. "I see a bank down the street, I'm going there." Steve follows a few steps behind the brunet, then Tony turns around to face him making him stops. "You can stay here, see around the town, maybe. I won't take long." He assured. Steve hesitates at first, he didn't think it a good idea left Tony's alone, but maybe he was being too protective, so he just nods and Tony goes ahead without him.

There is not much to look around, families were having lunch, restaurants were completely full, kids were running around, couples were walking hand in hand. The sun was high and bright in the sky, that's definitely what summer season is supposed to be. Steve never really enjoyed summer, being a sick kid meant staying home all day. Sometimes, some days, he used to sit on the stairs in front of the house and sketch the other kids playing around, and then his mother called him in because the dust wasn't good for his asthma. Though, the summer season was definitely his best healthy days.

Steve wasn't sure how long he waited for Tony, fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe? He was so lost in his reveries that he didn't see time pass by. He was starting to worry when Tony's voice spoke through the comm.

"Steve," the brunet sounded serious, and Steve felt a cold passing through his spine. "I guess I'm being followed." The Captain stood up at once.

"Tony, where are you?"

"I'm next to..." Tony didn't finish and all Steve heard was something being hit, probably, against the wall.

So, Steve rushed against the crowd direction, pushing people the way down to the bank. His heart pounding hard inside his chest, _please, let him be okay_. When he reaches the bank, he only saw some businessman and staff coming in and out for lunchtime, then Steve noticed an alley between two old buildings opposite the street.

The sunlight blinds Steve's sight, he raises a hand to cover the light and glance to the alley, then Steve crossed the street and reach the alley in time to see two men, both wearing suits, one of them trying to pull the briefcase with the Tesseract out of Tony's hand who had a firm and tight grip on it. The other punched Tony's on the face, leaving a bleed scratch on his left cheek. Tony kicked the man who was pulling the briefcase on his stomach, which made him stumble backward. A spike of adrenaline flows in the super soldier's veins, Steve takes the other man by his back by his collar, pulling him away from Tony and punched him on the nose, it instantly starts to bleed, he punched the guy again and so many times, that the man hasn't had a chance to hit Steve, he fell knocked in the dirty ground.

The other guy tried to stand up, but Tony hit him with the repulsor, he hit the wall opposite the alley, groaning in pain he spits blood. Tony stops in front of the guy and kicks his left leg calling his attention.

"Who are you?" Steve stops beside Tony watching the guy. The man smirks mischievously and his eyes fall on Steve.

"Watch your back, Captain." The soldier got the man by his collar, raising him from the ground, the man laughs unafraid, looking straight to Steve's blue eyes. "Hail Hydra." That's his final words before bits the pill inside his mouth.

Steve threw the man's body on the ground, running his fingers through his hair pacing back and forth in the alley, he should've imagined it, the blond's sighs annoyed and turns to face Tony. There are drops of sweat on the brunet's face, he passes the back of his hand on his forehead wiping them away.

"Are you okay?" The blond grunts. Tony just nods affirmatively, resting his head against the wall. Steve walks in his direction, turning Tony's face to analyze the scratch on his cheek, no need for stitches, _thank God_.

Steve grabs Tony's face between his hand, they are close, too close to each other. Steve can feel Tony warm breath so close to his face, he feels the adrenaline spike going away. Steve strokes his thumb back and forth on Tony's right cheek. He hates to see Tony hurt.

"Oh, Tony," Steve whispers, his eyes falling on Tony's lips on the exact moment that the brunet's lick it, wetting it. Tony observed the blond's expression attentively. They wanted it, both of them, the universe was always pushing them to each other. So, Steve leans and smashes their lips together. Their tongues intertwined inside their mouths, tasting the moment, why they took so long to do it? It feels so right, so _fucking_ great. Steve tasting every inch of his mouth, Tony letting his hand sliding on Steve's side pulling him closer, their bodies appreciating this proximity, Steve's hand going and resting on the back of Tony's neck, deepening the sensation.

They broke the kiss, both gasping for air. Tony looked deep in those blue eyes, as clear as the summer sky. He liked it, no, he _fucking_ loved it and he wanted more of it, more of Steve, all he could wish was that Steve also wanted it as much as him.

"Wow! That was..." Tony started to say.

"Unexpected." Steve finishes. Tony titles his head and smirks.

"I'd say sexy, but unexpected suits too." Tony teases making Steve laughs. _Oh God_ , his laugh is so pleasant.

The man on the floor groaned in pain behind them, their glance back while the man crawled out of the alley. Steve's hand now resting on Tony's waist. The billionaire frowned.

"I guess we should go somewhere safe." Steve agrees while keeping a genuine smile on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony ordered a hot black coffee in the middle of the afternoon, in the summer season, the weather was so fucking hot that it seems insane, Steve don't say anything about it, though he's amused. On the other hand, Steve preferred an iced coffee, he wasn't a huge fan of the beverage, but seen that the only empty shop was the cafeteria, he guessed he didn't have another option. Also, because Tony literally dragged him in the place.

Steve took a sip, he had to admit that it wasn't so bad, perhaps not a beverage for every day like Tony always take it, though he would never say that he enjoyed coffee to the genius, he knew that the brunet would never take it away if he did.

He lost his train of thoughts when a group of friends enters the cafeteria talking too loud, after they gained a few angry stares of the other costumes, Tony included, they sat down and talked in a tone of voice more acceptable.

Tony was tapping his finger on the edge of the table anxiously while looking out of the window uninterested, they haven't talked about what happened in the alley, about the kiss nor the fact that two guys were following him and one of them just said Hail Hydra before killing himself. This event brings out another memory from the past, the one right post-serum, when a man killed Erskine, ran away with a sample, he caught the guy and those are exactly his last words.

Steve should've remembered that Hydra had grown inside the Army after World War II, creating roots and growing along with SHIELD, always being a shadow, always crossing Steve's path and hurting the people he loved. Steve sighed frustrated and Tony stops tapping.

"What's wrong, Capsicle?" He raises his head to face Tony, the brunet's was pretty relaxed for someone who was attacked, anyway, he was talking about Tony, whose actions were incredibly unpredictable.

"Hydra. Hydra wants the tesseract. They have people infiltrated in the Army. Some of them must've seen us."

"Maybe, uh, recognize you?" Tony shrugs.

"That's improbable." Steve twisted his nose in an act of disagreement

"So, how do we know that they know we have the tesseract?" Tony asks and a sudden glimpse comes to his mind.

"The woman in the elevator, she called security when I was coming out," Steve affirms. A light seems to turn on inside of Tony's mind, like the mention of the woman had awakened something, a light of recognition crosses his eyes.

"I crossed with her in the hallway. Me and, Uhm, Howard."

"You didn't have the briefcase yet, when we were in the elevator."

"Fuck." Tony clenches his fist on the table. "You think they expected that someone would steal it? It doesn't make much sense."

"No, it doesn't," Steve thinks, his eyes wandering outside of the window.

"I guess we've got a problem, then" Tony starts tapping on the table again.

Steve tries to pull his thoughts together again. None of this was making sense, they already messed this timeline. Tony was right, why Hydra expected that someone would try to steal the Tesseract? Was anyone else behind the cube? Steve knew that Hydra always wanted that stupid cube to make advanced weapons, did they want to start a war again? He would be surprised if it was it. But SHIELD also had the tesseract, he remembers well enough that Nick Fury also wanted to create weapons using the power of the cube. Oh God, that was such a mess, he is not able to think straight right now, so he shuts his eyes tight.

"Can you stop doing that, please?" He opens his eyes. "It's annoying." Tony stops and Steve can't deny that he was a little surprised, the billionaire didn't have the habit to follow orders.

"I know what you're thinking." Steve lifts a brow under the brunet's statement. "Hydra would steal it yesterday, unfortunately, for them, not for us absolutely, we got there a little early." Tony takes a sip of his coffee and smirks. "Can't even imagine the filthy thief's face when he, or she, realized it was already taken."

Steve can't do anything, but smiles. Everything becomes a joke to Tony. The way the genius plays with the words was just fascinating to Steve, it used to annoy Steve in the beginning, when they first met, but not anymore. Steve had learned to love and appreciate those flaws of the billionaire's. Always laughing in the face of danger, it drives Steve crazy with concern.

"They'll come after us," Steve says.

"That's exactly why...We need new disguises!" Tony smiles brightly and Steve frowns a little confused. "Let's go shopping!" Tony stands up leaving a 20 dollars note on the table, which will be more than enough to pay the bill.

Steve follows the brunet to the exit, he looks both sides before crossing the street, they haven't talked about the kiss yet, and Steve was starting to worry that maybe he had pushed too hard, the adrenaline rushing through his veins didn't make him thinking straight, maybe he went too far. He couldn't know none of this, he had to ask Tony about what happened, does that kiss mean something? He couldn't deny that he was afraid of knowing the answer. All of these thoughts were growing roots inside of his head, making him feel so insecure.

They found a clothing store two streets ahead of the cafeteria, there were a lot of clothing stores and other fashion accessories from the 70s, luckily, the stores were almost empty, clothes weren't as interesting to tourists.

They got in the store where quickly a salesman comes to greet them and offer for help, in case, they needed it, wich Tony immediately thank and decline, turning to the closest clothing rail to check the clothes. God, Steve had just remembered that it would come from Tony's watch money and he hated the thought of Tony paying things all on his own.

"What's the matter?" Tony asks twitching his nose.

"Nothing." Steve lies getting close to the rail too.

"Better get more than a pair, we might not have time to shop later," Tony says and Steve nods in agreement.

After a few minutes walking around the shop and some clothes hanging on his arm, Steve glances at Tony who seems to have difficulting find clothes to himself, the blond understand the feeling, the stamps in the 70s were too flamboyant, and the colors too bright. Kind of unusual to someone like Tony who is the most part of time wearing expensive suits, generally, in the same colors, dark blue, black, white, and grey, those colors composed Tony Stark's wardrobe.

However, Tony already had a few clothes with him, all in the same colors that Steve mentioned, on his left he spots a dark blue shirt, that one would suit Tony's so well, Steve thought before took it and handed it to the brunet, Steve wasn't expecting that Tony would take it since he doesn't like being handed thing, but he does accept it with a smile on his face. It looks like the piece that was missing.

"Thanks," Tony muttered, a slight flush of redness grew on his cheeks.

Wait, did Steve just make Tony Stark blushes? He surely deserves a prize for it. It should be a challenge among the avengers, how to make Tony Stark blushes? Natasha would love it, looking for many ways of embarrassing the brunet. It'd be fun. Steve smiles at this thought.

"Why don't you try on that one?" Tony says, less embarrassed now, while pointing to a spot behind the blond. He turns around to see that Tony was pointing to a black leather jacket in the shop window.

Steve furrowed, he does like a leather jacket, he used to wear them more frequently than he thought, Tony surely have noticed. But it was summer now, he doesn't need one, except maybe to be stylish. He turns back to Tony who just rolls his eyes and walks to the jacket, asking one to the salesman, he hands the jacket to Steve.

"I don't need one. It's summer." Steve excuses, but he catches the jacket when Tony throws it in his direction.

"I like seeing you're wearing one. It suits you" Steve blushes, he was a little surprised that Tony notices the clothes he wears. "Consider it a late birthday gift," Tony says blinking at him and going to the cashier. Well, Steve's birthday was two weeks ago, except for Nat he didn't think anyone else would remember it, though he didn't actually celebrate his birthday anymore.

After paying for everything, they change their clothes in the fitting room, thanking the salesman and the cashier of the store. Now they were properly dressed to the 70s. When they exit the place, Steve realizes that the sun is setting, he had lost complete sense of how much time they spent in the store. Of course, it was Tony's fault who took so long to choose his clothes.

There was nothing else that they could do in New Jersey, they already had the Tesseract, the only thing missing was the Pym particles, so their next destiny is San Francisco, where Pym Technologies was settled, which also means that they have a forty-four hours road trip ahead.

"We need to go to San Francisco."

"Yep. I guess I figure it out on my own." Tony says looking around.

"How do we gonna do it, then, genius?" Steve teases, which makes Tony's lips curled upward. "It's a 44 hours trip."

"Well..." Tony faces him and Steve wasn't exactly prepared for what came out of his mouth next. "We're gonna steal a car." Steve was kind shock for this statement, that wasn't exactly his idea, in fact, he didn't have any idea of how they would get in California, but surely a robbery wasn't in his plans.

"What?" Steve almost spits the words, his brows lifted upward in a clear sign of disbelief.

"Don't look at me like that!" Tony exclaimed. "Didn't your previous experiences as a criminal prepare you for that?" Tony provokes reminding what happened in Germany, the Civil War.

When he didn't sign the Accords and protected a fugitive, even though Bucky was innocent, he broke so many laws, being qualified and chased as a criminal for the U.S Government. Two years in complete hell, he couldn't trust anyone, his home was taken from him, the home that Tony gave to him. Tony was taken from him, and it was all his fault. Tony bringing the subject up make Steve realized that the brunet may not forgive him completely, and God, it hurts, he had lost Tony so many times, he couldn't stand lose him one more.

"Right," Steve sighs changing the weight in his legs and resting a hand on his hips. "How are we going to do it?"

"Do you see that pickup at the end of the street?" Tony says but he didn't turn around, Steve glances upon Tony's shoulder. "Tank if full. The owner just got in the restaurant with a bouquet in one of the hands, probably a date, so he's not gonna notice that the pickup is gone till the end of the date. It gives us, at least, one hour ahead on the road." Tony speaks sure of himself. Steve nods in agreement.

So, they cross the street walking peacefully in the pickup's direction, when they reach it Tony takes control of the situation unlocking the car's door fast like he had already done something like this a lot of times. Steve gets on the car, and Tony is already connecting the wires to make the car works. Steve observes the street through the rearview rubbing his hands nervously.

"Hey, calm down. Take it as a loan." Tony says joyful when the car starts. "Here we go, baby."

Steve felt like he could breathe again. Tony accelerates the car above the limit, typical, and Steve put the seatbelt on, remembering the brunet of doing the same. They didn't say a word until they finally reach the road outside of New Jersey.

He knew they needed to talk about what happened early in the alley, plus, Steve needed to know if Tony was really jealous of Peggy, or if it was only an imagination, his mind playing tricks with him. The blond had dozen of questions but he didn't know how to begin this conversation, after all, he didn't know if Tony really feels something from him beyond the teammate's affection. Steve was a mess when it comes to talking about his feeling, and maybe, right now he was overthinking.

Maybe, he should just apologize and waits for Tony's reaction, yes, that's it. He glances at Tony, whose eyes are fixed on the road, his hand thickened on the wheel, the wind coming from the open window is messing his black hair and the sunlight of the sunset making his brunet skin glows, it is such a marvelous view. Steve smiles turning to look out of his window, he takes a deep breath.

"I'm sorry for early." Tony furrowed, then a light of knowledge appeared in his eyes. "I shouldn't..." Steve starts to say.

"It's okay. I just..." Tony pauses. "...didn't know that the Captain was into boys."

"I-I, it's just..." Tony cut him off one more time.

"I guess I was wrong about, uh, you know, you being bad at keeping secrets." Tony shrugged, and thank God he didn't mention Siberia, and the secret Steve kept about his parents' murder.

"It's just..." just what, Steve? He thinks to himself. "the government wouldn't accept it so easily, neither the U.S. Army, being a public figure, well, it's a shit."

"Did you just swear, Rogers?" Tony lifts a brow and has a proud smile on his face, which makes Steve smile too before turns his gaze outside the window. "I got it, though, you deserve to have a life, a private one, being happy no matter who you love. You deserve it, Steve. It's not fair to let the authorities take this off you." Tony thighs his grip on the wheel, and tenses a bit.

"I know." Steve shuts his eyes, feeling the redness growing on his cheek with the next question that came out of his mouth. "D-did you like it?"

"Sure. I did. I-I enjoyed it... very much." Tony is looking at him, Steve is sure of that, he can feel those brown eyes observing him, maybe waiting for a reaction. The blond opens his eyes just to have his hypotheses confirmed. "Don't worry, Cap, the boy who you chose to spend your life with is a lucky one."

Steve feels a growl coming up in his throat, he wanted to correct the brunet, says that he had already chosen. Although, Tony didn't. But he couldn't say it, he couldn't do it.

"I have a crush on you." The words came out of his mouth faster than he could stop them.

"Oh" Tony lets out. Steve's eyes fixed on him, waiting for any reaction, but Tony's face keep steady, nothing. "I'm... flattered?" his tony of voice is incertain, is Tony embarrassed again? He sounds like he is.

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologize." For a tiny moment, Tony seems like he's going to rest his hand on Steve's left knee before he retracts the move and grips the wheel again. "I'm just surprised, I think. I grew up hearing stories about the greatest Captain America and all of this." Tony hesitates. "I kinda have a crush on you too."

Tony spits the words so fast that Steve's ears are not so sure of what they just listened. That's awkward. Unexpect just like the kiss they shared. It sounded so right. Maybe, the timeline was affecting his mind, or whatever. Steve doesn't know what to say next, so he observes Tony for a few seconds, watching while the brunet's shoulder tenses up, his grip intensifies on the wheel and his breath becomes irregular. The words loosen in the air and none of them can react to the side effects those loud words cause in their heart.


	5. Chapter 5

Natasha got in Tony's lab without knocking or warning, she doesn't come down there often, so he expected she would, at least, have the decency of knocking, her high heels click loudly on the floor making Tony raises his head to look at her. He hadn't been working for so long that Natasha would come down to drag his ass up to eat something or get some sleep. He was just doing some minors upgrades in the Iron Man armor, trying to distract himself from what happened early. So Tony frowns to the sight of the red hair, while she leans against the table next to him with her arms crossed, ready to scold him for something that he had no idea he did.

"I heard you and Steve had an argument." It's all that she says.

Yes, that's right. They argued for a silly reason, a hypothetical idea, in matter-of-factly. Basically, Tony was wondering along with Bruce about the power of an infinity stone and what could be created with that, or something like that. He just said some ideas and hypotheses about Wanda's powers being related to the stones, and if maybe they could isolate that power to create something great, like the suit armor around the Earth. Of course, Steve got angry about the discussion between the two scientists and scold them, which Tony answered with sarcasm and made Steve even angrier. It was bullshit. No one could manipulate the power of those stones to make something greater, well, not on Earth, the power emanating from the infinity stones was too dangerous to try something so risky. Tony just wanted to create stuff to protect people and the Earth.

"Who told you that?" Tony asked glancing back to his work. He can feel the widow's gaze heavy observing him.

"No one. I just linked the dots." She says shrugging. "You, here, at your workshop. And Steve is blowing up every sandbag available with his punches. You are really predictable, guys." Tony rolls his eyes, sometimes he just forgets that Natasha is a spy and she sees further than any of them.

"Then, you better go upstairs and tell him that I'm not replacing it."

Natasha chuckles. Of course, Tony would replace them, he always did, he knew it and so did Natasha. He wasn't so obvious, was he? What if... she knows about it? A shiver passes through Tony's spine.

"What's so funny?" He asks twitching his nose, he doesn't look up at Natasha, he doesn't want to see her face mocking at him.

"Allow yourself to be happy, Tony."

Not exactly what he expected to listen, but he lets out a sigh of relief. He trusted Natasha, after overcoming all that play about Natalie Rushman and get to know her along these years, she became a friend, he could count on Nat.

"Only if you do that too." He says now glancing up to find Natasha pale, her lips clenched in a thin line. Now, it was her who was surprised and shocked by his answer. The widow never opened up about her life or how she obtained her skills, but Tony knew for sure that Natasha must've been through a lot. And it's okay, he doesn't need to know, everyone has secrets, she only needs to know that Tony supports her and she can also see him as a friend.

"Fine. That's fair." She mumbled.

They stayed quiet for a couple of minutes before Tony decides to get rid of the heavy burden inside his chest, he needed to tell it to someone, let the words flow out loud.

"I-I..." The genius stuttered, shutting his eyes. Why was it so hard?

"Go ahead, you can do it, Tony." She said reassuring, telling Tony that he could admit his feelings.

"I-I think I'm falling in love with Rogers." The words slip out before it's too late to take them back. Natasha smiles widened, she is really having much fun in this whole _fucking_ situation.

"Really?"

"I-I know..."

"No shit, Sherlock. Have you just discovered it for himself now? 'Cause I know about it a long time ago" She says extending the word _long_. A genuine smile on her lips. Tony shrugged. "I guess the only two people that don't know you're falling with each other, it's you and Steve," She said, curling her hair.

Tony looks away, unable to face the red hair. Steve wasn't falling with him, the blond loved Peggy, he carries a picture of her wherever he goes, Steve wasn't... couldn't... Steve does everything right and Tony, Tony is a such a mess.

The brunet takes a sip from the mug with the Stark Industries' logo, the coffee is cold, dense and gross, he swallowed the liquid with a bad will and puts the mug on the table again.

"This... This is not possible." Natasha sighs exasperatedly at this statement like she already had had that conversation.

"I guess I may not live to see you two together, you both are too stubborn to believe me." She says, leaving behind the lab and Tony with a head full of confusing thoughts.

Tony blinks when reality hits him back. That memory, that specific memory was when he realizes that he, indeed, loved the blond super soldier, the man that he grew up listening about. What a coincidence! Life is _fucking_ weird, Tony thought. He fell in love with Captain America! And Steve has just said that he had a crush on Tony, that was unbelievable. Perhaps, if they knew about each other's feelings sooner, they could've been together a long time now, perhaps the Civil War wouldn't have happened, a lot of things could've been different if they only knew. But the past can't be changed, they could only move on now, a fresh start. Perhaps, when they fix what Thanos did, when they bring everyone backs, they can give themselves a chance.

That's a lot to think about, Tony's life is full of _what-ifs_ and _maybes_. And he should be sleeping now, but he couldn't because Captain America gave him a lot to think about in just two days since they got trapped in 1970. He didn't want to lay down and being kept awake by his thoughts or nightmares, he also felt so defenseless when he's lied, he could feel his breath getting irregular at just the thought of sleeping. Tony Stark is a mess. So, he better stay there on his feet, looking out the window to a sky full of stars, where he can name the constellations, and the fresh wind of summer blows on his face, messing his hair. The stars seem so bright from that hotel's window. He was glad that Steve suggested to make a stop, so they could get a proper shower and a comfy bed to sleep, well, it's not like Tony is going to sleep tonight, even though he's tired. the day was freak insane.

He turns around when he hears a low whine coming from the bed next to him, this time they've asked for twins room. The brunet watches the blond trembling on his bed and his face grimacing like he was scared. A nightmare, surely. He didn't know that Steve had nightmares, he actually didn't know a lot lately. Another frightened whine gets out of the soldier's lips and Tony decides to wake him, that's what he wanted people to do with him in these situations, there was nothing as scared as being stuck in your own mind, in plus, he hated the sight of Steve suffering and being hurt.

Carefully, he approaches the bed sitting on the edge of it while the blond trembles once more. Tony nudges his shoulder, of course, it doesn't work, but the billionaire was scare of frightening him more than he already looked. He touches his biceps, feeling the muscle twitching under his hand, and he shakes it slowly. It's enough to bring Steve backs to the real world.

Steve sats on the bed panting and putting his head on his own hands, covering his face, he breathes fast and short, clearly too overwhelmed by the bad dream. Tony's sat by the soldier's side, he rests his hand on Steve's shoulder again squeezing it, attempting to reassure the blond that he was okay, he was safe. It seems to work, because Steve passes his hand through his wet hair and turns to look at Tony, he looks thankfully.

"Thank you for waking me up." His voice is nothing more than a whisper, it sounds broken heart to Tony's ears. Tony shrugged.

"That's what I'd like someone does to me," the brunet muttered. "Are you alright?" Steve glances at his hands and nods affirmatively while his breath stabilizes. "You never mention it for anyone's in the team, we could've helped you."

"I always deal with it alone."

"Well, you don't have to anymore."

Steve raises his head to look deep in those brown eyes. There was desire in his blues ones, Tony could see it clearly, and he was feeling so attracted to those blue eyes, both have waited so long for this, for any correspondent feeling from each other's part and now they have it. Steve didn't move, his lips were parted and his breath was warm. Tony felt an invisible thread pushing him towards the blond, he couldn't resist it anymore.

He needs to know the truth before surrender completely, he needed to know if Steve really loves him as he does love Steve. He felt insecure and exposed, but it was okay, because there was only him and Steve in that room, and he wasn't afraid of showing his weakness to the blond. His heart was already broken since Germany.

He had nothing else to lose, so his body surrenders leaning to the blond and bringing their lips together. Tony doesn't need to fight for dominance in this kiss because Steve already allowed him to take over. Steve pulls Tony closer to his body, the brunet is almost sat on his lap. Tony's hand rests on the blond's chest while Steve has his hand on the billionaire tight. It was an urgent and needy kiss, it felt so _fucking_ amazing, just like the first one did. It's Tony who breaks the kiss to catch his breath, they keep their forehead together and Steve observes the contours of the philanthropist's face, his beard perfectly aligned, the shine of his skin on the moonlight. Steve strokes his thumb on his face affectionately while Tony keeps his eyes shut appreciating the touch and thank inner for it.

"You know you broke my heart, right?" Tony whispers. "When you run away. I mean you broke it figuratively and literally." A smile appears on his lips.

"I know. I'm sorry." Steve feels the guilty clenching inside his chest. "I was selfish. I never meant to hurt you, Tony. I hate seeing you hurt." Steve regrets.

Tony sighs, he regrets it too. He regretted more things than he should and he didn't want that Steve was consumed by this feeling as well. They could've done differently, they can do different now. Beginning by forgiving each other.

"I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have brought the Accords. I-I don't know what I was thinking."

"You wanted to protect us, Tony. I couldn't see that at the time, but I see it now. I forgive you" Steve scoops Tony's face on his hands and places a gentle kiss on his forehead."I just hope you're able to forgive me, too"

"I am. I forgive you, Capsicle." Tony's voice sounds fragile, he holds his tears and opens his eyes to find blue eyes looking softly at him. Tony doesn't remember anyone looking at him the way Steve was doing, he never felt so loved and wanted like he did now. His chest was warm with the sensation of being loved.

"Great, because I love you so much, Tony. I've been loving you since that battle in New York." Steve confessed. "I can't handle losing you anymore. I-I don't even know how I handled it all these years."

Tony wants to comfort the blond, hugs him, kisses him endless times. Tells him that he always had his heart. Oh God, they were such fools. They've been playing around all this time, when they could've been together a long time ago, if they only have admitted their feelings before, their hearts always belonged to each other.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Tony mumbled, hiding his face on the blond's naked chest. Steve smelled so good, it was intoxicating, and Tony just couldn't get enough of it. Steve ran his fingers through the genius' hair, dropping kisses near his forehead and ear, never letting go of him, keeping him safe and sound in his strong arms.

"Because..." Steve begins, then he sighs painfully. "Because you were in a relationship with Pepper. Then, when you broke up, Sokovia happened." It was curious how destiny was always fooling them, it seems like the whole universe was conspiring against them and any chance of them getting happy. "Also, you were a playboy, Tony, how was I supposed to know that you are bisexual?" Steve adds and Tony blushes, that's the second time Steve makes him blush in less than 24 hours, it should be some kind of record.

Tony pushes himself out of Steve's hug to look at his face. A brow lifted questioning.

"You could've asked." He says.

"Like you would've told me the truth."

"Or you could've just kissed me like you did earlier, then you would figure it out." Tony retorts with a sassy smirk on his lips. Steve furrowed and narrowed his eyes, but he ends up smiling too and leaning to find Tony's lips once again. After they parted, Tony stares deeply in those blue eyes. "I love you, too." He leaves these words to fill the silence between them. Tony always has been scared of saying those words out loud, everyone that he cares, ended up leaving him, and each departure hurt more than the last one. He didn't want Steve to leave him too, but he hadn't realized that not saying it was keeping him away from achieving his own happiness, from Steve, until now.

He never felt so free like right now. Steve pulled him closer, and suddenly he was sat on the blond's lap while they kissed. Steve hands sliding on his side, his big hands were capable of breaking plenty of things, punching and kills enemies, but against Tony's skin, they were smooth, loving, and warm while the blond worships his body.

"You're so beautiful, Tony."

"Look who's talking!" Tony mumbles feeling Steve's lips curls upwards at the compliment between their kiss.

"We will still have hours on the road tomorrow. Better try to get some sleep," Steve says breaking the kiss and push back to look at Tony. The brunet grunts in refuse but he stands up wandering to make his way to his own bed before Steve pulls him back to the bed.

"You're such a spoiler," Tony complains, finally accepting his fate and laying down by the empty and narrow space that Steve makes to him in his bed.

Therefore, he snuggles himself against Steve comfortably feeling the supersoldier wraps an arm around him protectively. Steve drops sweet kisses on Tony's back neck and shoulders, cuddling him. The sensation of his lips is marvelous, breathtaking, and Tony just wishes that it never ends.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there's a smut scene in the end of the chapter, just leaving this warning here in case you don't like it.  
> I hope you like this chapter!

Time passes by real fast on the road after that night. Steve and Tony were more talkative and intimate with each other. They were taking back for years of being secretly in love in just hours, they talked a lot about everything, their feelings and the moment they realized they loved each other.

Steve found it hard to define an accurate moment of realization, but he'd say that was the moment after Tony flew in that wormhole in New York, the moment they were eating shawarma together, and Steve's heart sank the moment he realized he could've lost Tony. For the billionaire, it took a bit longer to admit it himself. Thus, he remembers he got a call from SHIELD telling him that Captain America got shot, and quickly Tony made the arrangements to Steve being transferred to a decent hospital that Tony had afforded, Steve's shock face was too funny to watch, the blond didn't know about it till Tony slipped out.

They talked about Tony's reckless impulsive behavior that almost led him for death plenty of times and how Steve almost had a heart attack with each one of them, which Steve made Tony promises to stop with his self-destruction tendencies, otherwise, his one hundred three years old heart wouldn't handle it. Steve attempts to joke made Tony laugh, a genuine laughter that the brunet didn't remember to hear one of himself in years.

They talked about Tony's PTSD and Steve's nightmares related to World War II. Germany and Siberia were also a topic of conversation, in fact, a relevant and enlightening one. Those hours on the road were gold and allowed them to know each other deeply, make them exposing their fears and insecurities. It was a precious moment that they've shared and Steve caught himself craving for more moments like this, because he loves to hear Tony talking and laughing carefreely, also the fact that Tony had opened up to him and trusted him was curious, but perfectly pleasant. Steve's instincts were stronger than ever to protect Tony no matter what, they always have been, though. Their jobs are quite dangerous, he knew it very well, and he also cared so much about Tony wellbeing that he wouldn't measure efforts to make sure the brunet was safe. Even though, the brunet wouldn't enjoy the idea of protection very much, not if it meant Steve putting himself in risk because of him, but like Natasha said once, they both are too stubborn.

They were two hours away from entering San Francisco when Tony suggested grabbing something to eat, after all, they still had to look for someplace to settle in. Steve sighed in frustration after affirm that they could eat as soon as they reach downtown, but Tony denied, insisting him to go. Steve ends up agreeing because he really hasn't seen Tony eating since they left the cafeteria in New Jersey, also because Tony's stomach rumbled.

Steve entered the convenience store while Tony filled thecar tank. There was an old lady reading the newspaper nonchalantly behind the counter, a fifteen years old teenager on the back of the store looked like nervous and was staring to a ginger guy who was checking CDs, three others teenagers were hiding, or stealing, products on their pockets, on Steve's left, a couple was discussing what beer brand they should buy for a party. Steve just caught a basket and put some bags of chips, bottles of water, soda cans, and other stuff they might need.

The couple had finally decided and was paying for the beer when from the corner of his eyes Steve saw the fifteen years old kid being cornered and insulted for the other three. A familiar feeling tickles inside Steve, he truly hates bullies, before he realizes, he is walking in the teenagers' direction.

"You okay, kid?" He asks pointing the chin to the boy cornered, the sound of Steve's voice made the other three jump and quickly move to a safe distance from the boy who sighed relieved.

"Y-yes, sir. T-thank you." The boy stutters and his gaze turns to the door where the ginger guy is leaving the store. Steve followed his gaze and things started making sense inside his head, he should remember himself he was in the 70s, rights and thoughts on LGBT people were very different, full of prejudices.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. You're not doing anything wrong." Steve says and the boy's look falls onto him, his eyes widened. "Love is not wrong at all. It's beautiful. Society has no right to make you feel guilty about loving someone, even if it means someone from the same-sex." The teenager observed him attentively, but he didn't say anything, just took his bag and hurry to reach the door, it slammed behind him. Perhaps, the boy was too surprised for being discovered, it's okay, Steve got the feeling, he remembers very well when Natasha caught him looking to Tony with a smile and linked the dots all by herself giving him a convincing smile. _Fuck you, Natasha_.

So, Steve paid for his products and the fuel and made his way back to the car. Tony was leaning against the vehicle, arms crossed over his chest.

"Is everything okay?" The brunet asks with a brow lifted. Steve simply nods and turns around to take the driver's seat, Tony opens the door and accommodate himself in the passenger's side, Steve throws the plastic bag to him, Tony caught it and opened a bag of chips and starts to eat offering it to Steve who takes some.

"How do you think our teammates will react when we tell them about us?" Tony furrowed. He wasn't exactly expecting the question nor even thought about it really, but it would be fun to imagine their teammates' reactions.

"Well, Natasha will cheer up, for sure. She probably will say something like _Finally! I thought I'll have to lock you both in a room for days till you confess your unconditional love for each other_." Steve laughs, that's pretty accurate and sounds exactly like Natasha. "Bruce will give us a shy smile, then pats us on the back and congratulates us." It looks like Tony knows their teammates pretty well.

"I guess Thor would probably kill us in a _very very_ tight hug," Steve says, smiling. Tony lifts a brow as he was saying _excuse me_ to him.

"Well, he would kill _me_. I'm not sure if Thor's hug is capable of killing _you_." Tony jokes. Steve stares at Tony with an amused smile, it's not like he would let it happens.

"What about Clint?" Steve asks.

"He's not going to stop making jokes about the sexual tension between us during every Avengers' meeting."

"That's not true." Steve blushes.

"It is."

"It is not."

"It is." Tony insists and Steve gives in, rolling his eyes. _He's spending too much time with Tony that he's acquiring some of Tony's habits we used to hate_ , he thought. Tony turns on the radio and Vehicle by The Ides of March fills the car for the rest of the trip.

-

They left the car in an empty street, next to downtown, like Tony had said it was a loan, they never intended to keep the vehicle, and they hoped the police would track it and the owner would have it back soon. Tony bought a newspaper in a kiosk in the corner of the street and started to look for apartments for renting in the want-ads They only have a week left before coming back to their original timeline, but if Hydra wants the Tesseract they would be pretty determined to find it, which means that Tony and Steve needed to be really discreet in order to keep the cube safe and sound for their own's sake.

Steve and Tony found themselves in front of an old and ugly build in the center of San Francisco, which is not bad at all, since it's pretty well located. The owner of the apartment leads them inside, she's a sympathetic and helpful lady in her 50s, she presents the small apartment to them, a bathroom, a kitchen and a room, according to her the water is always hot, so they didn't have to bother about it. Steve grins at Tony approving the apartment, it was fine, as long as they're together everything would be fine.

"We'll stay," Tony says to the woman standing his hand for a handshake that the woman happily accepts.

"Will you stay together?" The woman asking furrowing, her mouth turns into a thin line.

"Yeah, I guess my half brother enjoyed the place," Tony lies skeptically, they can't risk rising any suspects about their status.

"Half brother?"

"Yeah, dad cheats on my mom. It sucks." Tony shrugged.

Steve grimaces unhappily, _what the hell, Tony?_ The owner's chin falls, she looks a bit scandalized, but as soon as her face comes, it fades away while she conducts Tony outside.

Steve waits for Tony in the apartment doorway, while the brunet goes signs whatever paper he needs to and pay the rent in advance to get the keys. He gets back soon with the keys rolling in his fingers, they got in the apartment and Steve closes the door behind him before turns to the billionaire with a grimace.

"Half brother?"

"Hey, don't look at me like that! It was the best thing I could think at the moment." The billionaire exclaims indignantly.

Steve throws his hand up.

"You could've said that we're friends, teammates, more like partners, actually," Steve says approaching Tony slowly.

"We can't risk being caught, Steve." Tony sighs exasperatedly. "This is not the twenty-first United States century, where there are still prejudice but also laws to protect us. People will not be friendly if they know that we date." Steve sighs, he knows that the brunet is right, but he can't deny that he finds it hard sometimes not to shout his love for Tony everywhere. He kept this secret for so long and now that he finally has Tony, he just wanted to tell everyone.

He nods in agreement and takes a step forward closing the distance between them, his hand wrapping Tony's waist while he leans to kiss him. Tony kisses him back happily. They pull back and take a minute to catch their breath.

"I love you," Steve whispers scooping Tony's face on his hand, his thumb stroking back and forth on the brunet's cheek.

"Love you, too, Cap," Tony says back dropping a genuine kiss on the supersoldier's lips.

Steve's eyes sweep the apartment and he realizes that there's only one double bed. It's okay for him, that's not a problem, but he didn't want Tony to feel uncomfortable, even though all he wanted was to share a bed with Tony for the rest of their lives.

"I can sleep on the couch." He says. Tony pushes out of the blond's wrap and he looks around the apartment, his looks falls on the double bed and he turns with an incredulous look to Steve.

"Please, tell me we're not discussing this. We've been sharing the same bed in the last days. What difference will make you sleep on the couch?" Tony says pointing to the bed behind him. Steve shrugged, his face turning red. "Also, are you calling me old for not volunteer to sleep on the couch? Because, in case you didn't realize yet, the grandpa here is you." Tony says, an amused smile playing on his lips. Steve smiles too pulling Tony closer to one more kiss.

"Yeah. sure, we'll see who is the grandpa." Steve teases, a sassy smirk on his face.

"I love a challenge, you should know that." Tony jokes rubbing and rolling his hips against. Steve's. The blond can't suppress the moan that comes out of his mouth. "Let's go, we have to buy some supplies besides chips and soda." He pushes himself out of Steve's grip around his waist and walks out of the apartment, leaving the door open to Steve.

The blond watches him, his blue eyes taking a good look from Tony's behind, a provoking smirk on his face, the brunet was teasing and leading the soldier to the edge. Steve follows the brunet, locking the door. Tony was playing dirty with him, but thankfully in this game, two can play.

-

At the end of the day, they have decided to go to a pub two streets away from the apartment they rented. Plus, the Dodgers would be playing tonight, and as Steve roots for the team they had a great excuse to hang out and spend the night together.

The pub was crowded, the counter was nowhere to be seen since the people inside were leaned against it with their eyes fixed on the TV where the speaker narrated the game, people shouted at each score made and poured their beer on the counter and on the tables next to it every time they toasted a move was made. Tony wasn't exactly the kind of person who roots for teams or any other kind of sports, but being there with Steve was nice, watching the blond grins like he never has seen before. God, he was so _fucking_ in love with Steve.

They must have had a couple of beers only, since Steve couldn't get drunk and Tony just wanted to enjoy the moment sober at his lover's side. So when the game is over, with a Dodgers' victory, and Steve asks if Tony wants to leave he nods affirmatively. Yes, he just wants to spend the rest of the night with Steve only for him.

So, Steve leads him to the exit, both of them anxious to be alone again, five drunks guys stumbling in each other get in the pub bumping in everyone around, included Tony. Steve puts his hand protectively on Tony's lower back and once they are out, Steve holds Tony's hand firmly, Tony smiles. They could only be themselves when they're away from people gaze.

They turn the corner, and Steve pulls him to an alley, Tony's back bumps against the brick wall, both of them were being consumed by the desire to touch each other. Steve smashed his lips against Tony's, the taste of the beer they had was still strong inside their mouths, their tongues intertwined in an eager kiss. Tony fists Steve's shirt pulling him closer to his body, the billionaire feels his cock gets hard under his pants. The proximity of them allows Tony to feel Steve bulge against his body. Steve's hands hold his hips with a steady grip while he peppers kisses on his neck, Tony bits Steve earlobe, the blond moans against his mouth before pulls himself back to catch his breath, Tony sees those beautiful blue eyes filled with lust.

"We-we should get back." Tony gasps. Steve nods.

"Yeah, we should." Steve holds his hand pulling them back to the street light, they walk fast, their body is on fire and the urgent feeling of touching each other is too high to be ignored. Finally, the ugly building appears at their sight for Steve and Tony's relief. Tony pulls the keys out of his pocket and he barely could open the door because Steve was kissing him, on his neck, shoulders. Steve pushes him in, slamming his back against the door.

Steve's hands rest on his waist and their lips met again in an urgent and needy kiss. Tony wraps his legs around the blond's waist, and Steve holds him tight walking to the double bed in the center of the room, their lips never lose each other, except when Tony peppers kisses and sucks smoothly Steve's neck.

Steve puts Tony gently on the bed, crawling over him, taking the brunet's shirt off revealing his chest and the scars where the arc reactor used to be, he didn't care about it, instead he kisses Tony's chest, dropping kisses on the scars until his tongue found a nipple licking it. Tony arches his back in pleasure.

"You have no idea how much I want this," Steve mumbles kissing Tony's neck.

"Trust me..." Steve sucks his neck, leaving a beautiful and red hickey on it. "I do." Tony finishes. "Get off of these clothes." The billionaire complains, bossy as always.

Steve smirks, standing up and taking off his shirt. Tony props himself up on his elbows observing the supersoldier movements, his biceps contracting while he stretches and pulls the shirt out of his head, revealing a perfect and defined abs, and all Tony can think is how lucky he is.

"Admiring the view?" Steve teases.

"Sure." Tony licks his lips in a provocative way, Steve's eyes follow his tongue.

Then, Steve pulls his pants down. Tony's incapable of taking his eyes off of the beauty Steve's body is. The bulge inside of the blond's underwear is huge and so fucking awesome. Tony feels like he can't wait any more minute to have the blond. Steve crawls on top of him again, pinning him down on the bed and holding the philanthropist's arms above his head. He rubs his nose on the curve of Tony's neck, he's wheezed and he's in control.

Tony rubs his hard cock over the pants on Steve's, the friction makes the supersoldier moans loud. He lets go of the brunet's hands, moving his own hands to unbuckle Tony's belt and getting him rid of the pants that Tony was still wearing.

Tony finds the blond's lips again, biting his bottom lip. He wanted it so bad, he's been craving for it for so long, having Steve like this, naked on top of him. Then, Steve's eyes mouth move, stopping above Tony's bulge. The blond strokes his cock and Tony's body shivers with lust, then he leans and kisses the bulge.

"I thought you were innocent, Rogers," He teases. Steve smiles, pulling Tony's underwear out, his cock pulls off with a drop of pre-cum on the tip, Steves licks his lips slowly, his eyes observing the brunet.

"Never said I was" Steve says before taking Tony in his mouth.

The billionaire shuts his eyes in pleasure, his back arches up pushing him inside of Steve's mouth. Steve's mouth deliciously warm, his swollen lips closing around his length, sucking him. Steve's eyes never leave Tony's, observing his reaction.

"Steve. I-" Tony feels his cock throbbing. "I'm gonna cum." Steve takes Tony's deep in his throat, Tony's thrust and come inside of his mouth, Steve swallows the hot seed that the brunet slips out, licking his lips with satisfaction. "Damn it, Steve, where did you learn doing that?" Tony pants, the blond smiles gasping, his cheeks in a heat ton of red. Then, he drops a kiss on Tony's lips, his hands sliding on the side of the billionaire's body.

"I love you, Tony." He whispers facing Tony passionately. There's lust and love deep inside of those blue eyes. Tony strokes Steve's cheek affectionately with a smile on his face.

"I want you, Steve." Tony wasn't innocent. Tony Stark wasn't innocent at all when it comes to sex, but he never ever actually did it, even though he had played around with some guys that he used to know in parties, he never went that far, just some blow jobs at most. But with Steve he wanted everything and he'd never been so sure about anything in his life.

"You're sure?" Tony nods while Steve takes off his underwear flaunting his girth cock.

He leans towards the nightstand opening the drawer and taking off a little bottle of lube. He kneels between Tony's legs spreading them, wrapping them around his waist. Steve pours lube on his fingers, then gently, he inserts one finger in Tony's entrance pushing it slowly and carefully. Tony feels the burning in the beginning, then it slowly fades away, and Steve adds another finger, thrusting his fingers merciless inside of him, scissoring him, preparing Tony to take him all. It feels good, Tony thinks, Steve's fingers inside of him feel really good. He pants when Steve pushes in a third finger, his hard cock pulses with the lack of attention but he doesn't want to touch himself, so he pushes back the feeling, focusing on Steve, on Steve's hard cock with a drop of pre-cum.

"St-Steve, I need you -- inside me." Tony stammers.

"As you wish, sweetheart." Tony smiles with the pet name, then Steve takes his fingers out of him and Tony feels empty while he watches the blond pouring lube on his length.

Steve kisses Tony's thigh, making the billionaire shivers, then he positions himself in Tony's entrance, rubbing his dick provocatively in his entrance.

"Tell me if I'm hurting you, right?" Steve says, a flash of concern crossing his eyes. He only goes ahead when Tony nods affirmatively.

Tony feels the head of Steve's cock pushing in, bringing back the burning, it doesn't hurt, actually, just stings. He feels Steve pushes forward a little more, then the burning starts to become in pleasure. Tony sighs feeling his hole stretches and struggles to accommodate Steve's huge cock, suddenly, he feels full again with their bodies connected.

"You okay?" Steve asks.

"Yeah, keep moving," Tony replies feeling Steve pushes all of him inside Tony. A wave of pleasure consumes his body and he moans out loud.

Steve moves slowly, thrusting inside of him. Steve grunts from pleasure, his eyes closed while he slides his hands to Tony's hips, keeping the brunet steady while he thrusts again harder this time, Steve's cock deepening further inside of his hole. Tony pulls Steve closer for a needy kiss that the supersoldier gently gives back, his nails sliding on Steve's lower back, the blond moan, thrusting again.

"You're so tight and warm, Tony." Steve grunts thrusting harder.

Steve keeps thrusting and his attention turns to Tony's cock hard and demanding him to touch. Steve strokes his cock, the feeling of Steve fingers around him sent a wave of heat all of his body. Steve thrust one more time, and Tony's moan with pleasure when Steve hits his prostate.

"There;" Tony shouts overwhelmed with the pleasure his body is experiencing while Steve thrusts in the same spot. Tony grabs the sheets, his knuckles turning white when his cock throbs on Steve's hand who keep pumping it harder now. "I'm gonna cum." Steve smiles.

"Come for me, Tony." And Steve doesn't need to say it again, when the brunet comes, his hot seed spreading on his and Steve's stomach. Tony feels his hole tightening around Steve after his release. "Hold on a sec, sweetheart," Steve says. Right, supersoldier. He thrusts twice more before he releases inside Tony. Steve leans dropping a soft kiss on the billionaire lips before slid out of him.

They are a mess, but a beautiful and lovely mess. Steve lies down beside Tony, his eyes closed. Both gasping for the exceptional sex. They were covered in sweat and cum, but they don't mind it.

"That was amazing," Steve whispers.

"Yes, it was."Tony mumbles, hiding his face on Steve's arm, snuggling by his side, which Steve happily accepts while caressing his dark hair and dropping a smooth kiss on the top of it.

Steve moves in an attempt of getting up, but Tony grabs his arms.

"Where are you going?" He says a little desperate for the loss of contact with the supersoldier.

"I'm going to get a washcloth to clean us up." Tony lets go of his arm with a sigh before crashing onto the bed one more time.

Steve grins while he drops one more kiss on Tony's forehead when the philanthropist closes his eyes to relax. Then, he turns to the bathroom, getting a washcloth to clean the cum and the rest of lube out of him, then gets another wet washcloth and walks towards the bed, where Tony is laying, tired of their recent activity.

His hands are gentle, cleaning the brunet's stomach, then his inner tights and Steve's seed coming out of his ass.

"Just come back here," Tony complains pulling the blond back to the bed. "I love you."

Steve lies down by his side, wrapping an arm around Tony, smelling his hair. _This is perfect, this is everything he has ever dreamt about,_ he thinks. They both fall asleep tangled in the amount of their limbs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misunderstandings between Steve and Tony.

"What are you doing?" Tony asks with a hoarse and sleepy voice, he attempts to stretch, but stops as soon as the move makes his hips and legs hurt, he's definitely a little sore, a quick and pleasant reminder of the sex they had last night. He rubs his eyes lazily to glance at Steve.

The morning light is shining through the window next to the bed, which makes Steve's hair even more blonde, illuminating his face and his blue eyes, it looks like Steve has a bright aura around him. It's beautiful and pure.

He's sitting on a wooden chair, his legs folded up on the bed where a sketchbook rests on his knee. He's biting the tip of the pencil when he glances up and his eyes find Tony's brown ones. A smile surges on his red and swollen lips. It's a magical view. Tony wishes that he could spend the rest of his life like that, waking up with Steve by his side while those eyes look at him full of awe and love.

"Good morning, Tony."

It's all that he says before his attention comes back to the sketch, and Tony noticed that Steve is wearing a dark blue boxers while he is still naked on the bed.

"'Morning, Stevie" The billionaire replies, emphasizing the blond's nickname.

Steve grins. A smile that makes Tony's heart melt and he can't believe that once he wanted to punch those perfect white and shining teeth.

"What are you doing?" He asks again.

"I'm drawing you." Steve shrugs. Of course, Steve had drawn the brunet plenty of times without him really knowing. "Stay still."

"Uh, sure. I'm not sure if I can stand up right now." Tony mumbles laying his head on the pillow again, his dark hair with some strands of grey falling over his forehead.

Steve laughs, but he can't hide the flush of redness filling his cheeks.

Tony must have fallen asleep again. because when he wakes up Steve is no longer sat on the chair. He smells coffee and it makes his heart warms, it feels like home again, like he would scold someone soon for putting coffee grounds in the kitchen disposal, the memory makes him smile.

He stood up, even though the soreness is still present. He puts on his boxers, and makes his way to the kitchen. The smell of coffee is intoxicating. In the kitchen, there was Steve, he had already showered and dressed. A pity, because Tony, would've loved showering with the blond, but now that they were together, yeah, Tony Stark was committed, opportunities will appear more often.

Steve looks up, a smiling appearing on his face at the sight of Tony.

"Hey, did you sleep well?" The blond asks.

"Better than ever. You?" Tony pulls a chair close to the counter.

"Same. I'm glad," Steve shrugs, putting the coffee in front of Tony who pours some in a mug. It was strong, thick and bitter, just like Tony likes it, no sugar or sweetener. He took a sip, in the corner of his eyes he sees a sketch, he stretches his arm to reach it, putting the mug back on the counter to take a good look of the drawing.

It was him, no doubt. His hair falling onto his forehead, his lips slightly parted, the blankets wrinkled covering his body, he looks so peaceful. Tony doesn't remember the last time he got a proper night of sleep.

"It's beautiful." He mutters, more to himself than to Steve. He takes another sip and glances up to see Steve serving them. "I didn't know Captain America was an artist." Steve smiles shyly.

"I used to draw when I was a kid." For a moment, Tony thinks he won't continue, but he does."You know, I was a sick and scrawny kid from Brooklyn, so I couldn't play around with the other kids outside, so I drew. " Then, he adds. "And read, I used to read a lot."

Tony doesn't say anything. He had a solitary childhood too. He used to seek parts of machines that he could use to build something all over the house, when he found enough, he locked himself in his room and thought what he could do with those parts. The difference between him and Steve was that Tony choose to stay in his room. He was a hyperactive child always running around looking for something to create or fix.

"Keep it. It's yours. I made for you." Steve says. "I'm glad you like it."

"Thank you." Tony blushes slightly, biting a toast that Steve had just put in front of him.

"Oh my God. You blushed again. I surely deserve a prize for making you blush." Steve says filling his mouth with some scrambled eggs. Tony sticks out his tongue, which just makes Steve laugh.

God, he loved that laughter. He wasn't used to hearing it, Steve looked more relaxed than he already has seen it. It didn't matter that they were trapped in 1970, they were together and that' was enough. They would be fine, Tony knew it from the bottom of his heart. Everything would be fine as long as they stayed together.

Later that afternoon, they were in bed, they didn't feel like leaving the house today. Also, it wouldn't be necessary since they still had supplies, and Pym would be back in over a week now.

So, they talked about their lives, their childhood, the Avengers Initiative, but most of all, they cuddled. They still had a mission, take the Tesseract to 2023, but this break was precious and unique. That's something they have been needing for so long and they haven't realized. That was the universe's push to make Steve and Tony finally being together, all that they have been living since Steve kissed Tony was exquisite and breathtaking, they deserve that, they deserve to be happy. Even though Tony knew that happened these past five years was a big mess, and a lot of people were mourning for their loved ones, Tony forgets all the guilty and he was just being happy. Because for the first time since Afghanistan Steve made Tony realizes that he was worthy of happiness.

Tony was just tapping on the hologram that his phone projected when Steve traces slowly and carefully the hickey on the crock of his neck, the touch gave Tony goosebumps, and for a second he closed his eyes appreciating the touch.

"Does it hurt?" Steve asks.

Tony turns to look at him, just to find a light of concern into those eyes. Steve is a super soldier, so his strength was inhuman, leaving bruises on Tony.

"A little bit, if you touch by accident. But it's not uncomfortable at all. I liked it, though." Tony says smiling. Steve lets out a sigh of relief. "Don't worry, Capsicle. You won't break me." He leans and kisses Steve, suddenly, the blond is on top of him again.

-

Two days passed by with no incidents, and Steve and Tony were utterly involved in their nest of love, completely absent-minded of the world outside.

Then, Tony woke up with an idea, something that would be really helpful later. Pym Technologies's floor plan. The original one, with all the hide entry and labs, because obviously, Hank Pym wouldn't put the Pym particles in the showcase, there must be a hidden lab somewhere in the building.

He stepped out of the bed careful not to wake Steve, he took a quick shower and left without breakfast or coffee. There's no need to wake Steve for that simple task, he was more than capable to do that on his own. When Tony Stark has an idea, he got obsessed with it, not even basics necessities could get him rid of it.

He got a cab and around twenty minutes he arrives in the place. The building was far from downtown, which makes perfect sense since the enterprise would be running experimental tests that could result in a release of radiation or even an explosion.

In the reception, he plays the card of a scientist from MIT visiting once again. It was kind of stupid, but people believed in that matter-of-factly. After all, Pym Technologies is a growing company, affiliate with universities is a good way to make business, as well as recruiting scientists.

Tony's aware that the security cameras would catch his face. But since that the 70s camera's footage was awful and low quality, that was not something he should be so concern about. So, he moves on, passing through hallways, labs full of interns and professors.

Someone's bumps onto his shoulder. A younger scientist, sixteen years old, maybe.

"I-I'm so sorry, sir, er, professor." The boy said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck and smiling to Tony.

He seems familiar, Tony thought. His coat is too big for him, he looks nervous but at the same too agitated, the way he talks reminds him of Peter, the spiderboy. That's it. The boy looks like Peter. A pinch of pain crosses his chest. Peter that died in his arms.

But now, they could change it. He could bring Peter and the others back. He has a mission and he has to accomplish it. He has to take those rare particles and takes the space stone back. He can do it. For Peter. For all of the people who had lost their loved ones in the snap.

"Don't worry kid." He pats the boy's shoulder smiling back to him. "Would you know, by the way, where the director's office is?" He slips out, taking advantage of the situation.

"Ahn, y-yes." The boy blinks. "It's on the seventh floor. Just go ahead when you reach it."

"Well, thank you." The boy turns back to return his activities and Tony starts making his way to the elevator, but turns back. "Hey, kid!" He shouts, the boy turns around to look at him. "Go break some eggs." Then, Tony turns back smiling nostalgically.

The boy was right, he just needed to go ahead to find a glass blur door with the name of Hank Pym, CEO of Pym Technologies. A piece of cake!

The door was locked, of course, but a simple door would not stop Tony Stark, right? So quickly he solved that problem, and once he was in, he started to look for the floor plan inside of the cabinets, drawers, archives. Then, in the last drawer of Hank's desk, he found a black folder, the cover is made of leather. Tony glances at the papers inside of it, till he found it. The floor plan in the middle of all those boring documents, that's the original one, from the 50s, with all the entries, underground levels, and hidden labs.

"Yay!" Tony celebrated, taking the project, and leaving the office.

It was easier than he thought, it looks like Hank Pym doesn't expect information to be stolen, otherwise, he needed to improve security fast.

-

"Where have you been?"

It was the first thing that he heard when he got into the apartment. Steve was standing next to the kitchen floor holding a coffee mug. The eyebrows concern told Tony he was in trouble for not prevent the soldier from his little and harmless adventure.

"Pym Technologies." The brows only got more intense. "I woke up with this idea. If we're gonna steal the particles we have to know where they're hidden, right?" The blond apparently was not following his train of thought. "I got the floor plan of the building, so we can study a way into these secrets labs," Tony said taking the floor plan out of his lab coat and handing it to Steve who just smiles.

"Of course you did." He took the document spreading it on the table next to them.

Tony observed Steve and the way his eyes moved to the document. He is a strategist, Tony could even see the supersoldier's neurons working at lightning speed to get them in.

"Guess we have a lot of work to do," Steve said turning and kissing his lips.

"I'm gonna make some coffee, then."

The sun was setting in the horizon when Tony opened the cupboard and realized that they really needed to go to a grocery store if they were planning to have homemade dinner tonight.

Basically, they have spent the day over the building floor plan, distracted, and making a plan to get the Pym particles as soon as Hank will be back and leave the building without being noticed. They would need to be discreet and get a disguise to get in, after that, they would have to find a way to reach the labs. It'll work. It has to. Steve assured him.

"Are we ordering takeout?" Tony said while took a sip of his coffee. That was probably the seventh mug he had had only in a day.

"No. I'd get supplies in the morning, but then you arrived and we got distracted with this," Steve replied folding the floor plan. "There is a grocery store down the avenue."

Tony nods while already making his way to the door. He waits Steve gets his leather coat, then he locks the door.

Outside, the salty breeze of the sea welcomed them. It was fresh for a summer evening. The sunset was a mix of rose, orange, and blue. Indeed, a breathtaking sky. The weather brings up memories from when Tony lived in Malibu, he used to love evenings like that, the only ones capable of taking his ass out of the workshop just to appreciate the landscape with an expensive glass of white wine in his hands.

They lived downtown, so the street was crowded with people enjoying this amazing night. Couples kissing, or sat on a table drinking, young people listening to some music out loud on their car while drink with friends, families eating in a pizzeria, and laughing. It all seemed so unreal, but at the same he knew he was living in it. Steve's tip fingers touching his smoothly and discreetly, a smile playing on his lips, the blond was happy, and so was Tony. They couldn't hold hands in public, Tony needs to remember himself all the time that they were trapped in the 70s, but Tony promised to himself that once they get back to 2023, he would always hold Steve's hand in public, proudly.

Steve had lied. The grocery store stayed way more distant than he said, surprisingly it wasn't crowded when they get in. It was a small place with apparently all sorts of food and brands. Tony carries a basket while Steve takes what they need along the aisles.

"Why don't we take these?" Tony says holding a large and colorful cereal box. Steve frowns holding a bottle of milk.

"It's not healthy. Probably it has a high amount of sugar." The blond twitches his nose.

"C'mon, mister Perfect-Body!" Tony exclaims, rolling his eyes and turning to read the package's cover. "It says sugar-free, see? It doesn't even have sugar on its composition"

Steve takes the cereal out of his hand, reading the composition of it.

"Maltodextrin, dextrose, galactose. These are all sugars, Tony, hidden sugars." Steve sighs putting the package back on the shelf. "We need to get healthy food, it's better for us."

Steve goes ahead in the aisle, and Tony sticks his tongue out to the blond. Yeah, very mature, Tony Stark, he thought. Steve always makes healthy food at the Avengers' compound, he also used to cook along with Sam to feed everyone, and Tony still haven't gotten used to it. Perhaps, because he locked himself in the lab, and it takes Natasha or Steve to drag him out of there to make him eat or get some sleep. Those two dumbass always taking care of him.

Tony follows Steve, only stopping to get a candy bar in the middle of the aisle without the blond seeing it.

"I'll definitely take this one." He mutters to himself.

Steve is just a few steps from him when Tony noticed two men entering the aisle, one of them leads his hand to his hips ready to pull out a gun, in the next moment before Tony blinks again Steve has the guy on the floor.

Behind him, Tony feels something move, he turns around quickly blocking a punch directed to his jaw. Another guy came in his direction, and Tony pulled the guy he was holding his fist in the second, they stumbled. Steve had just knocked out one of his opponents when another goi in a fight with him.

The men came in Tony's direction again, the first one attacked, but Tony was short and fast and he dodges the attack. The second attacks, directing a kick to his lower back, which makes him stumbles and holds on a shelf bring the products on it to the floor. The second moves forward, this time raising his knee to hit Tony's stomach, but he doesn't expect Tony to take a step and hit his jawline hard, the attacker's head is thrown backward, and Tony holds his neck with a tight grasp almost cutting the airflow. The man pants, holding Tony's arm in an attempt to soft the grasp and escape, them the second holds a gun aiming at Tony.

"Let him go."

"Go to hell," Tony replies.

Then, the man shots. Tony uses the guy he's holding as a shield, blocking the bullet designed to him, and the bullet hit the man in the chest. The sound of the gunshot in the small establishment is loud and disturbing, echoing through the aisle and ricocheting in their ears. It's enough to make Steve turns in the direction of the sound and see the man Tony was holding falling on the ground.

The man puts his finger on the trigger again, prepare to pull it again when Tony runs in his direction, hit him and bring him to the ground. The guy struggles while Tony holds him arm aiming the gun to the empty aisle, except for the almost dead-guy shot in the stomach bleeding next to them. Another gunshot is heard and that's the moment where Steve takes the gun out of the bad guy hand pulling Tony next to him and aiming to the man laid on his back on the floor.

Behind Steve, Tony notices the two guys who were fighting Steve, one of them was unconscious and had a bleed nose, the other one was tied to a shelf with a black eyes, probably broken ribs.

"Who are you?" Tony asks taking a step forward.

Steve keeps aiming the gun to the man who just laughs, a loud and manic laughter. Then, his eye switches from Tony to Steve.

"They've been looking for you, Captain, for years." The man coughs and blood comes onto his hand. "HYDRA will not give up now that they know you are alive and with the Tesseract." Steve's face is neutral with a relentless countenance, his jaw is clenched, he's angry.

Steve holds the man by the collar.

"How did you find us?"

The man smirks like he had just reached his objective, everything happens fast, the man took something to his mouth, before any of them can stop him.

"Hail HYDRA, Captain." He says starting to convulse and drooling, and then his eyes are glassy. He's dead.

Steve keeps the gun, turning to Tony and reaching for his hand, rushing out of the establishment with hurried steps.

"Let's go."

They take a shortcut back. Well, guess they are ordering takeout after all. Steve doesn't let go of Tony's hand all the way back, they shouldn't be holding hands in public, the tight grip on his hand showed that Steve was still mad, even though Tony didn't understand why or who. The blond keeps looking behind and Tony followed his gaze, no one was following them, at the corner of the street they heard the sirens when two police car passed through them going straight to the grocery store.

Steve only slows their paces down when he saw the ugly building in front of them, the ink peeling. Steve got his keys inside his leather jacket, the same that Tony had given him as a birthday gift. That's when Steve lets go of his hand, get in the apartment, and going in the kitchen direction.

Tony closes the door, then he walks in the kitchen's direction leaning on the doorway, observing Steve takes a bottle of water out of the fridge and drinking directly from it.

"What's the matter?" Tony asks, his eyes following every move Steve makes. The supersoldier puts the bottle on the counter harsher than it needed. His blue eyes turn to him sharply.

"What you did was completely reckless. Run into the man who has a gun aimed at you! Are you out of your mind?" Steve says too harshly.

"I'm sorry, what?" Tony takes a step forward, raising a brow in defiance. "I got your back"" He shouts exasperatedly.

"No, you didn't! You do what you think is right, Tony. You're suicidal!" Steve yells, but he is not finished yet. "You don't know how to work in a team. You could've gotten yourself killed."

A flash of pain crosses Steve's eyes before he lowers his head, a hand resting on his hips, he sighs in a clear sound of disappointment. Tony's brows eyes are watered, he feels the lump inside in his throat grows thick and becomes hard to breathe. Listening to those words coming through Steve's mouth was too harsh and suddenly too much to handle, but he clearly deserves it.

"Bullshit, Rogers." He waves his hands turning his back to the blond man, which just makes Steve follows him out of the kitchen. Tony catches his keys that he just had thrown on the coffee table.

"Are you going out?" Steve's voice sounds in utter disbelief.

"Yeah, who cares, anyway?" Tony can't hold his tears any longer. He feels ridiculous or crying over it, Steve's words shouldn't hurt that much, he was used to being misunderstood for other people, but hear it from Steve was way too much. A tear rolls down on his cheek.

"Tony. Tony!" The blood pounds loud in his eyes making the shouts fade away on his way to the door. He didn't look back.

Tony slams the door on his back, leaving Steve alone in the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments and kudos! I'll update it weekly now. I hope you enjoy the story.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and all the kudos. I really appreciate them, I hope you're enjoying this story as much as I am writing it.  
> Besides, this chapter was very hard to write, I felt really bad for Tony.

He has no idea how he got there. His feet just remembered all the way he had made just a couple of days ago and led him to the place unconsciously. All the way down here the streets were dark and this part of the city wasn't too much crowded like the avenue they had gone through earlier, the only noise filling that street were his sobs. He felt stupid for crying, why was he even cry anyway?

He pushed the door and dodged from the people talking cheerfully, miserably he headed to the counter sitting and pulling a banknote to the bartender.

"A shot of whiskey, please."

The pub wasn't as crowded as the last night he had been here with Steve, though it was still early. He hasn't drank any alcoholic beverage in a long time. The bartender put the glass in front of him and he faced the amber liquid scowling at it like it was poison, which matter-of-factly is.

His father used to drink, sometimes, a lot. Tony had seen where it had led Howard Stark. He spent some much time, made such an effort, for not being like his father that he hasn't realized that he, in fact, became him. And Tony hated it, so much, he hated himself for all the mistakes he had made. He could forgive anyone, even Steve's betrayal, but he couldn't forgive himself for the harm he had caused to thousands of people.

Steve called him suicidal, and maybe the blond was right, he has been playing the hero a long time now and where it leads him? To more death from innocent people, but not his own, because apparently Tony should suffer, grief and mourn all those deaths, he should watch and pay for each one. And this time his burden was heavier, it was half of the universe, because he failed one more time.

The people cheering and celebrating around him had no idea how the future sucks, how much pain was reserved to their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, and watching all of this makes him sick. He blames himself for everything that had already happened and he wasn't able to change, he blames himself like that mother from the HR had blamed him for Sokovia, for his son's death.

What happened in Sokovia saved plenty of lives. God, saved a lot of lives otherwise the whole world would be dead by now, and he felt relieved for the lives and families saved and together now, but it was still the deaths that weight inside his chest, it was the deads who not allow him to sleep at night. All the lives matter, all humans being deserved to be happy. To have a future.

Tony closes his eyes, taking a long breath filling his lungs with so much air that his chest clenches so hard that it becomes painful. Tears rolling thick and fast down his face, therefore he holds his sobs clenching his jaw until he feels his head aching.

He shouldn't have run away, he should've stayed and listened to whatever Steve had to say. He opens his eyes facing the glass, a weakness. He knew he shouldn't but it was so hard to hear those words coming from Steve's mouth. But an action shouldn't justify another, he keeps repeating inside his head. He raises the glass. He wasn't so much strong as everyone else thought.

A woman laughing out loud calls his attention and he turns to see her sat on the floor, her high heels broken and her ankle twisted in a strange angle. The woman was laughing, drunk, the alcohol taking the pain away. He wanted it. He didn't want to feel pain anymore.

Someone bumps onto him, passing to help the woman, and the amber liquid feels on his shirt, leaving a terrible smell that quickly makes him feels sick again. He blinks looking far too long to the wet shirt. He didn't want to feel pain anymore, but how the hell he'd know that he is alive? Pain reminds us that we're alive, that we still feel and it's okay to feel.

He doesn't need to be numb. He needs to feel that pain, he needs to talk with Steve, to see things through his perspectives, only that way he could understand. He's worthy of happiness, he tries to remember himself. Tony took a deep breath. He would stay there and wait until the crowd fades. He would sit there and put himself together, and allow himself to feel.

The hours pass by, the crow dissipates, people leaving the bar to head home or to another party, like he used to do a long time ago. Tony glances at the clock standing on the wall in front of him, above the shelf filled with all sorts of alcoholic drinks. It's half past midnight, which means that they have officially five days left until Hank Pym comes back from his international trip. Five days to go back home.

He was calmer, his breath was almost regular even though the lump in his throat persisted. His head is still aching, he should go home and get some sleep, in the morning he would talk with Steve and fix it whatever he did wrong. So he thanked the bartender for letting him stay even if he hasn't drank anything, but looked pretty miserable.

Outside, the wind was cold and filled with the salty smell from the sea, messing his hair. A night of reflection sat in a pub seemed to bloom his senses, because the streetlights seemed too bright, he felt absent-minded, incapable of focus on anything. The streets to the apartment were quiet, the only noise came from the few cars passing in the avenue that they have been earlier.

He hears footsteps behind him and looks over his shoulder to see five men, drunk, one of them still sipping the rest of the content of a beer bottle before throwing it to the middle of the street, the glass flighting everywhere, but it doesn't hit Tony. One of the guys stumbles bumping on another guy on his left who pushes him out of his way. The guy raises his head laughing and his eyes meet Tony's stare.

"Hey, you!" He shouts, taking a step in his direction, he's too close. "I know you." Tony frows. No, he didn't know the guy, how could he--

 _Shit. Fuck_ , he thought.

His mind travels back to a few days ago. After the game, Steve and him were leaving the pub, the guy, this same guy almost stumbled onto him, but Steve had put an arm on his lower back, preventing it.

 _Fuck_ , he knows he is screwed if the guy had noticed that move, maybe he thought that...

"You filthy faggot!" The guy spits on Tony's direction before raising his fist and throwing a punch that Tony blocked easily since the guy could barely stay stand on his own feet. The guy stumbles with an evil smile on his face.

Of course, the guy's friends didn't like it at all, the guy with a ridiculous orange jacket comes in his direction along with the one wearing checkered pants. Tony took a step back, if he turned the corner he would reach the apartment, he could run and get safe at home, but when he attempted to run the guy with orange jacket pulled the breach of his sweatshirt, which made him fall on the ground and scratch his forehead, he felt the blood sliding down on his temple.

"What do you think, guys? Let's teach him a lesson, huh?" The one who tried punch him said. "Freak."

There's no way out. Tony knows that when the five guys cornered him and a foot hit him on the ribs, making him gasp for air feeling the pain spreads on his abdomen. Before he could catch his breath another kick hit his back. He wouldn't beg, he's Tony Stark, after all, he couldn't fight five guys with his own fist at once, he was highly outnumbered and these guys are such a coward.

A guy wearing a red tank top took Tony by the collar held him up and punch his jaw, Tony's teeth bit his bottom lip making it bleeds. Another punch hit his eyebrow and the corner of his eye. The first guy that attacked him raises his knee hitting Tony's stomach which makes him fold himself with a hand on his stomach. Tony spits blood. There's no point in fighting back. Perhaps he deserves it, it was his punishment for all harm that he caused to innocent people.

The guy let go of him, and Tony falls again, being insulted for who he is, for love Steve. Tears prickle on his eyes when another kick hit his stomach and Tony lay in the fetus position to protect himself of his attackers.

Fuck!

He doesn't see who spits at his side while saying that he is disgusted. He felt humiliated as he never felt, and the thought that he won't be the last to suffer this kind of aggression makes him feel sick. The guys leave laughing down the street on the opposite side he should head. Tony groans in pain in an attempt of lifting himself, the pain reflected in all over his body.

Tony crawls until he reaches the wall next to him, leaning on it for some support to get on his feet. He grunts with every move, holding his stomach and spitting an amount of blood. He stares to the corner in front of his, it's just a few steps he says to himself trying to gather his forces to makes his way back home, each step sending a painful wave on his body, he feels like he's going to faint every second, but he convinces himself that he can make it. He's an Avenger, after all, he fought Thanos, a bunch of robots, a Chitaury army, he certainly can make a few steps forward.

It's hard and he feels relieved to see that old building smelling mold, he almost crawls the stairs on his way to the second floor, leaning on the way while searching for the keys in his pocket. His hand was trembling, fuck, his whole body was trembling. He pushes himself in the apartment, leaning on the door to keep himself up, because he can't trust his own legs to do it.

"Tony?" He hears Steve's voice calling him, then footsteps coming from the room.

Steve's eyes wide in shock and horror at the view of Tony covered in blood. He must have fallen, because Steve's arms are wrapped around him, sustaining the weight of his body. Steve lead him to the room sitting him on the bed, taking off his sweatshirt, in the next moment Tony feels his back against the headboard. Every feels blur, he want to succumb to the urgent need to sleep. Steve gets out of his camp of sight and then suddenly he appears again holding a first aid kit.

"Tony? Tony, stay with me. Don't sleep." Steve says cupping his cheek, his voice sounds loud, but he knows that Steve isn't shouting, his headaches like hell, and he can hear his heartbeats loudly inside his ears.

The blond forces two pills inside his mouth, muttering something that sounds like "painkillers", then he feels Steve presses a wet cloth against his temple, and it stings, the smell of 70% alcohol in his nostrils, his bottom lips stings when another cloth is pressed against it.

He looks to the bloody cloth Steve threw on the floor, his bowels turn to the sight and he pushes Steve aside before he leans his head deep and throws up. He doesn't have any problem or phobia with blood, but the events of the night are too much for him. God, he doesn't want Steve to see it.

However, the blood is quick by his side, holding him up and putting him under the shower. The cold water hit him while he still has his clothes on and he swears against everything. Steve helps him to take his clothes off and bath.

"It's fuking freezing down here." He manages to say, but he is uncertain if Steve even understands it.

Twenty minutes later, he's sitting on the bed again, dressed in warm clothes, even though his body is shivering and his teeth are clenching. Steve's hands are soft when he puts a bandage over his scratched forehead. There's not much that the blond can do for his black eye and the dark purple bruises on his back and ribs. Tony watches him attentively, Steve hadn't said anything beyond his name since he got home. He finishes with Tony's injuries, putting everything back to the first aid kit, his hands fall on his laps and Steve looks at them for what seems a long time before his blue eyes look up to Tony's brown ones.

"What happened?" Steve asks, though the situation doesn't need exactly an explanation, but Tony tells him about the five men in the street, not so far from the building, the guy who recognized him from the other night in the pub and assumed, correctly, that he's queer. Steve listens to everything silently, his hands clenched in fists so hard that his knuckles turn white.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Steve sighs, reaching out for Tony's hand. "I wasn't thinking. I'm stupid." A shadow of a smile appears on his lips and Tony can't hold his own.

"It's okay." Tony mumbles. "I was stupid too." Steve nods still holding his hand.

"Did you drink?"

"No. I couldn't."

"Okay."

"Okay? That's it? Aren't you scolding me for leaving?"

"I believe you, Tony, I trust you, if you said you didn't drink, then you didn't. Also, I gave you reasons to be mad at me."

"Okay, then. I don't deserve you, you know that, right?" Tony says leaning to drop a kiss on those soft lips that only that supersoldier owned. Steve's lips curled up to the gest in an amused smirk before he looks at Tony in the eyes, getting all serious.

"No one is perfect, I've made a lot of mistakes too. But it's assuming them that we prove wrong." Steve, then, pats on his knee. "You need to rest now. We've had a long night." He sits on his side of the bed, pulling the blanket.

"Roger that, Captain!" Tony replies, turning off the lamp.

-

Steve hates bullies. And Tony hurt.

Guiltiness is eating him alive. He shouldn't have yelled with Tony, and now he can't sleep. The sight of Tony's body covered in bruises just makes him feel more guilty. He was nervous and angry at Tony for putting his life at risk, because he loves the brunet so much that he couldn't handle the mere thought of Tony being dead. Every time, every time, they were on a battlefield and Tony gets hurt or almost dead, Steve felt like his asthma came back, he just couldn't breathe anymore.

He had been looking for the empty wall in front of him for almost one hour, he glances at Tony who sleeps peacefully by his side, and Steve lets out a sigh before stepping out of the bed searching for his sketchbook that laid on the kitchen counter where Tony had left when he saw the sketch that Steve made of him another day. He catches it and sits on the couch opening in a blank page.

He wanted, at least, to try drawing something since sleep seems something unreachable right now, Steve points the pencil to the paper, but he is out of ideas, he starts to draft a line carefreely, he has no idea how much time has passed, he ended up with a paper covered in nonsense lines that means nothing, it's not even a draw, just some scribbles. He looks at the clock to realize it's 4:50, the sun will be raise soon.

He leaves the sketchbook on the couch and opens the door of the apartment to head to the rooftop. The morning wind is cold and strong, his hair ruffles everywhere, the sunlight is still weak in the horizon, but it gives the sky an exquisite view, painting it with tones of light and dark blue, and weak yellow.

Steve accommodates himself at the edge, bring his knees to his chest and wrapping his arm around his own legs while resting his chin on one of his knees. A few minutes later he hears footsteps behind him and turns to see Tony walking in his direction, in one of his hands he has a box while rubs his eyes with the other one.

"I woke up, and I didn't see you. Thought I'd find you here," Tony says.

"You should be resting, Tony." Steve replies turns his eyes back to the horizon, Tony stops beside him, then he sat cross-legged.

"Nah. I brought you something to try to make you feel less guilty, I'm fed up with you staring at me with these puppy dog eyes." Steve chuckles looking to the box in the brunet's hands and realizing that's ice cream. Steve raises a brow a bit confused. "What? Ice cream heals everything." Tony states looking a little indignant. He extends a spoon to Steve who looks cautious before finally accept it. "C'mon, Capsicle, you owe me that!" Tony clicks his tongue, opening the box and getting a spoon full of ice cream to his mouth, Steve follows him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean those words, it's just-" Steve sighs defeated. "I just hate seeing you in danger."

"It's part of the job, Steve." Tony is studying him with his brown eyes.

"I know. I feel like if-if you die, that's on me." Steve reaches for another spoon of vanilla ice cream.

"You know, I said this to Peter." Steve frowns. "Spiderman, Peter Parker, the kid from Queens," Steve remembers the sixteen-year-old clumsy boy fighting in the airport, he didn't know how Tony knew the boy, but he didn't ask, it should be a story for another time. "And, then, he died when that fucking purple guy snapped, and I have to watch him turning in dust helpless on my arms. Far from home." Tony looks down to his hands and Steve squeezes his shoulder reassuringly. "Then, that day you came to my house and mentioned this crazy idea, and I only could think in Peter and how he deserves to have a future. A bright future." His voice failed and Tony's eyes watered.

"He will, sweetheart."Steve leaves a kiss on the side of his shoulder. "He will."

The first rays of the sun hits them, warming their skin, wiping the cold away. Steve also hates the cold, it's a reminder of the time he lost in the ice, not that he could say that he lost, otherwise, he would never know Tony.

Steve observes how the rays of the sun give Tony's tan skin a beautiful light. His eyes looking over the horizon, his defined profile. _He's beautiful, and he's mine,_ Steve thought with a silly and in love smile on his face. Tony's eyes found his and the brunet leans to kiss him.

Tony's beard tickles his skin, but it doesn't matter because he loves it. Steve's hand rest on the back of the genius's neck, pulling him closes and deepening the kiss, then Tony groans and pulls apart licking the cut on his bottom lip.

"Sorry," Steve mutters still smiling. Tony touches the cut.

"Ouch, hell. Guess I have a problem, no way that will not kiss you because a fucking cut." Tony complains and Steve laughs. "I have an idea."

"What? Maybe I can use my mouth in other places." Steve suggests dirty and shameless.

"Well, even though I love this idea, that's not what I was thinking." Tony smirk. "It's about the Tesseract, we need to keep it in a safe place till we got the particles.

Steve sighs looking disappointed.

"You're right, we can't carry it everywhere with Hydra behind us."

Tony got on his feet swiftly reaching a hand out to Steve that roll his eyes, taking it and intertwined their fingers following Tony's out of the roof. The sun was already high in the sky.

-

Steve follows Tony to the middle of nowhere, they rented a car and made a 6 hours trip to Malibu carrying the briefcase containing the Tesseract with them, Tony just dragged him there without explaining much.

"You know if you tell me what we're looking for, we can find it faster," Steve says sitting on a rock while Tony was looking to the ground with the briefcase in his hand.

"You wouldn't see it." The billionaire replies, pushing away the sand with his foot, Steve hears a metallic sound. "Find it," Tony shouts.

Steve approaches to see what looks a door leading it to the underground, there's a device on it. Tony knelt typing a number code on it, there's a click coming from the door, and Tony pulls it up. Steve sees a stair leading below, Tony got in already going down.

"Are you coming?" He shouts disappearing into the darkness below.

Steve follows him in. Down there, blue lights on the walls are the only source of light, Steve sees shelves and boxes, old stuff, mechanics pieces broken everywhere.

"What is this place?" He asks looking around.

"It's a bunker, it's fortified and safe, also, it's unknown, it doesn't appear in any documents, it's on my family for generations,. It was built before World War I," Steve nods seeing Tony puts the briefcase in the middle of a shelf with a lot of old metallic pieces, the briefcase would easily pass unseen for someone who isn't looking for it. Steve must looks concerned because Tony says. "Don't worry. No one comes down here for years, maybe decades, and it'll remain like this. Let's go?" Tony tilted his head in the door's direction.

Steve reaches out for the brunet's hand, ready and eager for making the travel back to San Francisco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the next chapter I'll make a happy Tony and all fluff.  
> Just so you know, I'm used to updating it every Sunday.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a chapter with an amount of fluff and domestic Avengers.   
> Keep commenting, I really like to read what you're thinking about this story!  
> I hope you like this chapter.

Steve missed training days in the Avengers' compound. He also missed the morning jogging with Sam, well not exactly with Sam because he is faster than him, so he always outruns him, though he enjoyed his company.

He missed Clint always complaining about something or someone, and Bruce pacing back and forth in the middle of no matter room, until Steve asks him 'what the hell he was doing in the kitchen or in the gym room', while he mumbles something to himself. And Natasha eating a peanut sandwich while sat on the kitchen counter after a hard afternoon of training or shot practice.

Even Thor, who spent most part of his time in Asgard or outer space, he missed him asking about 'Midgard's objects and habits' or telling stories about Asgard. He also missed reading the newspaper on the tablet that Tony gave to him when they moved in the compound, the Internet is really useful and he couldn't deny that he missed it badly. He never thought that someday he would miss all of this when eleven years ago he felt out of place and time in the brand new twenty-first century.

Despite all, he loved being there, in the 70s, with Tony. Only the two of them enjoying each other. He had loved Tony secretly for so many years that sometimes he pinched himself to make sure that he wasn't dreaming, and Tony indeed loved him, too.

He smiles at this thought while, at the same time, he punched the sandbag in front of him, the chain hanging it from the roof squeaks, protesting against the move.

This morning, he decided to hang out for jogging, it's been a long time since he did it, more precisely since Scott showed up in their front door. He ran around, not too far from the apartment where they were settled, then he found this box academy. The girl in the entry, a boxer fighter, said he was welcomed to join them, it was still early so the place was empty, except for him, the girl and a guy organizing the boxer gloves, probably the owner of the place.

He left Tony sleeping, after everything the brunet went through these past days, he really deserved to get some rest, and now that the Tesseract was safe Steve felt more relaxed, Pym would be back in four days and then they would finally get home. Only a week had passed and a lot of things had changed, but Steve felt like Tony and him were together for longer, Steve still hasn't thought how he would tell the team about their relationship, though he still had a couple of days to think about it and talk with Tony.

Steve got a plastic bottle he had bought in the corner, taking a few gulps of the still cold water, he closes his eyes before throwing the rest of the content on his face, passing his fingers through his hair and the palm of his hand on his face, feeling the blond hair thick growing on his chin. He opens his eyes and jumps backward.

"Fuck!" Steve says, throwing the bottle in the garbage can, the other hand on his chest in an attempted to appease himself from the scare.

"Up for a morning sex, honey?" Tony says smirking, taking the sunglasses off, and putting it on the collar of his shirt, revealing the bruise still red next to his eye.

"Damn, Tony, you scared the hell out of me." He answers sitting on the bench and taking off the bandages around his fists and hands.

"Sorry. You looked so sexy, I didn't want to ruin the moment." Tony sat beside him observing Steve's moves.

"I thought you were sleeping, it's still early." The blond mutters.

"I was, but I woke up and you weren't there." Tony bites his bottom lip nervously. Steve knows what it means, he probably had a nightmare and Steve wasn't there to comfort him, just like last night. "I remembered seeing this place another day. I thought you'd be here, wasn't wrong, was I?"

Steve smiled. They knew each other too well that even when communication failed they would know each other's move. That's something good for their relationship, being predictable, even better for the battlefield.

"I want to take the day off." Steve states. "We have four days left we should enjoy while we can, you know, before we come back to reality and have to deal with this whole Thanos' stuff again." Tony smiles gently and Steve holds his hand in his. "I want to take you on a date."

Tony smiles widened.

"What? We just jumped all the steps and now you're asking me on a date?" Tony replies amused making Steve blushes successfully.

"What? I'm a traditional guy," Steve starts to say, but stops when he saw Tony lifts a brow. "Okay, maybe not much that much anymore, but I still care about these things." Tony sighs defeated, but in fact, he is loving it, he loved that Steve was old-fashioned. Also, that was Steve's way to redeem himself for yelling with Tony.

"Okay, then. Let's do it." Tony says getting on his feet. Steve attempts to hug him, but Tony steps back swiftly. "Ah-ah, you're all sweaty, and I just took a shower." He complains, even though his hand is on the blond's chest.

Steve leans forward to his ear, whispering.

"We can shower together." He bites Tony's ear lobe seductively before he robs a kiss from him. He feels Tony smiles naughtily against his lips, and Steve feels his own body shivering, not even remembering where they are and that they shouldn't be so close in public.

Steve thank the girl who allows him training and they exit the place, making their way back home. Home, such a small word full of meaning, what is home? A place where you would feel safe, but what if home wasn't a place, but a person? Steve had a home, the compound, Tony had given him that home, it was enough for Steve at the time, but now the meaning of this word changed for Steve. Home is a person and Steve knew that no matter where he was, if Tony was with him, then he would be home.

"Hey, look!" Tony shouts, pointing to the showcase in front of them.

Steve didn't even have realized that they stopped in front of a candy store, he was so distracted on his own thoughts. He glances to the showcase to see that Tony was pointing to a pink package full of colorful jellies gums and too much sugar.

"Oh, I don't think they made them anymore. That's a pity." Tony sighs nostalgically. "I loved it when I was a kid. I used to steal some before lunch without my mom knows, it drove her crazy." The brunet smiles sadly, and Steve can't hold the smile himself imagining a little Tony eating jellies gums hidden behind a door or under the table.

"That must've been fun," Steve answers, rubbing his hand back and forth on Tony's arm.

"Yeah. She always bought them when we went to my grandparents' house. We ate the whole package together, she was always happy when it was just the two of us."

Steve rubs his hand back and forth on Tony's back, sighing sadly. The genius, generally, didn't open up to anyone, Steve can't remember a single time that Tony has talked about his parents this freely, but it was nice to see that Tony was willing to confide a part of his past to him, even though he didn't deserve it, Tony was willing to trust him again.

What the hell he had in mind to keep that secret from Tony? He should've trusted him, he should've told about his parents' murderer, Tony probably would've understood it and everything would be different from now. They wouldn't have spent the last seven years without talking, and right now, Steve couldn't stop blaming himself for it. The past can't be changed, but he could build a future with Tony, learn from his mistakes, and try to be better.

"You know what? I'm going to buy it." Tony affirms determined, taking Steve out of his thoughts.

Steve's eyes follow Tony going into the store, he follows the brunet inside a few seconds later, but he stays close to the door. There were some kids running around inside the small place, the place opted for colorful walls, the colors were too distracted and it hurt looks at it for a long time, it smelled too sweet and chocolate, at the corner of his eyes he saw a five years old blond kid dive his fingers into the chocolate fountain, then licking them. The mothers too busy talking and gossiping with each other to pay attention to their own kids.

Steve blinks and his gaze turns to Tony, dodging a running girl holding a teddy bear, and caressing a boy head, he smiles at the sight. Tony would be a good father, he knew for sure for the way he talked about Peter the day before, he cares about the boy and Steve could see clearly now that the teenage also sees Tony as a father figure.

"Got it," He says holding a up a paper bag. "Have you tried it?" Steve shook his head. "Well, they're amazing, I'm telling you, you're gonna love it."

Tony reaches the knob, keeping the door open to Steve pass. They head together back to the apartment.

"Hum, I don't know. My taste isn't used to sweet food..." Steve doesn't finish the sentence, because Tony gasp exasperatedly cutting him off.

"You're gonna love it, otherwise you don't have a heart!" Tony exclaims indignantly "No, better, I don't think we can keep a relationship if you don't like jellies gums." Steve laughs at the serious face Tony made, but he can see the brunet's lips curled up while he bumps onto Steve's shoulder purposely.

-

Steve splashes water on his face, wiping off the barber cream and taking a good looking to the mirror in the bathroom, he passes his hand on it feeling the soft skin. Then, he smelled something burn right after a pan fell on the floor doing a disturbing and metallic noise.

"Everything is under control!" He hears Tony shouts from the kitchen.

Steve chuckles, shooking his head while he leaves the bathroom to save his boyfriend before Tony sets fire in the building.

Steve got in the kitchen to find the lunch already set on the small table, Tony had insisted on cooking just to prove that he could prepare a meal by himself, the pan was still at the same place it fell while Tony was drying the floor, the smell of burn came from a kitchen towel half burn next to the pan.

"I said I had everything under control!" Tony looks up at him, throwing his hand up.

"Sure." Steve retorts helping Tony to clean the floor.

"Stop laughing!" Tony says hitting Steve with a towel, which just makes the blond laugh more.

They finished with the floor, and both wash their hands before eating. Steve sees that Tony made a Caesar Salad, which is basically lettuce and vegetables, chicken, eggs, bacon, mayo, and parmesan. Everything looks delicious.

"It smells good," Steve says taking the fork to his mouth. Almost closing his eyes to how good it tasted. "You should cook more." Tony just gave him a cocky smile.

When they finish it's Steve's turn to wash the dishes while Tony dries them and put it back in the cupboard. They always work in partners, always helping each other.

Steve had the TV on, even though he wasn't paying attention in the news, he was drawing again, the amazing sunrise that they had the pleasure to watch together yesterday, he wished he had a canvas to paint it, though he was sure he couldn't reproduce that stunning scene perfectly.

Tony throws himself on the couch beside Steve. The blond look at him to see that he was holding the jellies gum he had bought earlier. Steve smiles, of course, Tony would take dessert.

He opens the package and the smell of sugar coming up in the air. Tony puts a few of the colorful gums into his mouth before offers it to Steve. The supersoldier takes a few, while Tony snuggles close to him, Steve passes his arm around the brunet's shoulder, so he can accommodate himself comfortably.

It tastes really sweet, but he can't deny that Tony was right, the sugar melting inside his mouth, those jellies gums tasted amazing. He reaches the package to get more and Tony smiles widely.

"Told ya." Tony throws three orange gums inside his mouth. "Let's go to the movies, then you take me out for dinner."

"So, you're planning our date yet?" Steve says stroking Tony's hair.

"Yeah, sort of I am." Tony shrugs, but he's smiling. Steve leans down to kiss his forehead.

"Okay, deal. What movie are we going to watch?"

"There's this new movie everyone's talking about-" Steve interrupts the brunet, moving to see his face clearer.

"Who's everyone?" Steve asks, a hint of jealousy in his voice. Tony smirks.

"Well, the owner and her niece. The movie's name is Pound, it seems nice for what they talked about." Steve nods. "Did you know that owner's niece has a crush on you? She asked me if you were single." Steve lifts his brows surprised, and Tony is smiling as if he thinks it is an amusing situation, which it is.

"What did you tell her?" He asked curiously.

"I told her that you have a really jealous partner and it's better, for her own's sake, to back off.

Steve laughs a really genuine laughter, the only person who can make him laughs like that is Tony. He missed it when he was away, he missed Tony, their talks, God, even their fights he had missed.

When Tony steps out of the Avengers' compound that day, after Ultron, Steve said he would miss him, and he really did, but he knew that Tony was okay, the billionaire visited them once in a while. Everything was fine, and then the accords happened. It took away their peace, and that stupid secret made him fight against Tony, Tony might have forgiven him, but Steve knew that he wasn't ready to forgive himself for that damage that he caused to Tony.

But now, here they are, cuddling in the couch like happier than ever, and all Steve only could wish that it longs, that they were happy till death do them apart.

-

"It's a cute movie. I like it. I guess you won't be able to tell me your opinion since you didn't stop staring at me the whole movie. You were almost drooling." Tony said smirking sassily. Steve frowns, but eventually, he rolled his eyes, impossible to hold his smile for longer

"That's not true. I like the movie, too, Tony." The genius raised a brow doubly. "Okay. I can say that I also appreciated that you held my hand, although I'd prefer to kiss you." Tony's smile fade, and Steve knew immediately that he had said something wrong.

"Honey, you know we can't." Tony turns his gaze to the crowd around them leaving the theaters, he's biting his bottom lip, a clear sign that it bothers him as much as it bothers Steve. "Same-sex relationships will only be allowed in 1976 in California."

Tony looks to his feet, upset. Steve touches his hand slightly and discreetly. He was tired of hiding who he is but knew that they couldn't risk it. Look what happened to Tony just a few days ago, he didn't want to pass through a situation alike ever again. One time was already displeased.

As much as he disliked all of this, he couldn't stand to see Tony hurt again, but once they're back to the 21st century, he would be able to show his affection for Tony, without receiving so much hatred looks as he surely does in the seventies.

"It's fine, Tony. I'm a gay guy from the forties, I get it better than anyone." Tony gives him a weak smile. "Let's go." He points the direction with his head, so Tony follows him.

Steve pulls Tony with him for a building abandoned entry, away from the curious stares. He smashes his body against Tony's, the billionaire's back hitting the brick wall behind.

There's an urge in their kiss, but it's needy at the same time. Steve holds Tony's head with his big hands, deepening the kiss, while Tony's hands are holding his hips with a firm grasp. Tony bits Steve's bottom lip, which makes the supersoldier smiles before they tear apart to catch their breath. Although, Steve keeps dropping down kisses on Tony's neck and shoulder.

"You're sassy, Stevie."

Then, Tony's mouth is on Steve's again. His tongue exploring every corner of the blond's mouth desperately. Steve lets out a moan.

Tony slides his hands into Steve's pants, touching the blond's hardened member, circling his thumb around the head of his cock. A drop of pre-cum sliding through his fingers, when Tony massages his cock, teasing the captain.

"T-Tony" Steve's voice comes out shaky, attempting to muffle a moan.

That's when everything went to hell. Because they didn't listen to the footsteps approaching, then a flashlight blind them momentarily.

Tony blinks, unable to turn his gaze to where the light comes, the philanthropist raises his arm to block the light from his camp of sight, on the other hand, Steve's eyes quickly adjusted to the light, and he spots two police officers, the first holding the flashlight is short and overweight, the second seems pretty young and apparently, new and unfamiliar to his jobs duties.

"Hey, you!" The one holding the flashlight shouts.

Steve grabs Tony by the wrist, he looks surprised by the soldier act, like he had forgotten for a minute where and in which year they were. His eyes widened when Steve pulls him when he runs to the back or maybe the front of the building, Tony wasn't sure about which side of the building they were.

"Stop!" Steve hears the police office shouts before he reaches the back door, pushing through it.

First, they were invading a private property, even though it's abandoned. Second, the display of affection between homosexuals is forbidden, characterizing it as a crime. So basically, they're committing not only one, but two crimes.

They come out in a street with a few people walking to only one direction, to the right. And that's exactly the direction that Steve takes. They are not running anymore, they turn the next two corners to the left mixing with the crowd in the seashore, losing the officers from their sight.

Steve turns with a smile to the billionaire, but Tony has a hand over his chest, he's panting and his body is mid-fold. Steve's eyes switch from joy and adrenaline to concern.

"Tony" Steve lays a hand on the brunet's back, rubbing it up and down.

"I'm okay." Tony stands finally upright. "No more runs, please." He inhales the maritime breeze deeply. "Geez, Steve! I can't keep your pace. I'm getting old." He finishes, panting.

Tony shut his eyes for a second, and Steve tells him to wait for him.

The supersoldier crosses the street the buy two bottles of water for them. They were lucky to get out in a street full of restaurants and snacks bar, and close to the beach. When Steve comes back, Tony is already recovering his breath, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Of course, when he ran he didn't think about Tony's heart condition, although, he should have to, he only thought about getting rid of the two officers. Now, seeing Tony panting that way, he couldn't hide the concern on his face.

He looks to Steve with a thankful smile before getting the bottle and drink half of it. The cold water coming down his throat is a relief, clearing his air passage and relieving the tight in his chest.

"Dinner, then?" Tony asks, finishing the bottle and throwing it in the garbage can.

"Sure," Steve replies doing the same.

The restaurant has a view of the seashore, it's particularly beautiful at night, even romantic, since the place looked exactly where Steve would invite someone to a date. In the reception, there are painting on the walls, it also seems like a museum, there are paintings being exhibited with the artists' information too. A stunning and fancy restaurant.

Everything in the restaurant shows sophistication, mixing the old and the modern perfectly. Luckily the place isn't crowded, which means that there are plenty of tables available, and, of course, they took the one next to the large glass windows with a splendid view of the ocean and the illuminated avenue outside.

They ordered their food along with a white wine. Tony would make an exception this night, he wants to enjoy every minute by Steve's side and forgets about the future for a while, they need that break. They need a moment where they'd only enjoy themselves without any superheroes issues to bother them. That night is just theirs.

They were genuinely happy. Tony couldn't stop smile at Steve who was blushing furiously, Tony didn't know that someone could get that red. They seem so intimate for a public space, but they didn't care about what the others would think, not tonight.

Steve was the one who took most, he told Tony about his family, his parents, his childhood as a sick and scrawny kid in Brooklyn, he also talks about the war for the very first time since Steve had woken from the ice. He trusts Tony and he felt comfortable to open up to him, as the brunet has already done so many times, he confides his fears and his insecurities, being certain that Tony supports him, and for the first time none of them felt alone anymore. They could lean on each other, because if they have each other then they'll be fine.

They trusted the shadows to hide their hands intertwined while they walk on the sand barefoot. The salty smell of the sea filling their nostrils, the soft wind hitting their face and messing their hair, it was a little cold, but the wine they had, helped to keep them warm for now.

It was around 9 pm, there aren't so many people walking on the beach, they had passed for a group of teenagers, one of them playing the guitar while the others sang, sat around a bonfire. The rest of the people around there keep their distance walking in the sidewalk.

They stop, and Steve don't hesitate to wrap his arms around the short man, Steve couldn't deny that he loved this slight height difference between them. Tony rests his head on the other man shoulder.

"Thank you," Tony says, keeping his eyes shut just feeling the wind on his face, that's so peaceful and calmly, and Tony just wishes that he could stop the world in this moment, because nothing could be more perfect than this, he knew it from the bottom of his heart.

"For what?" Steve mumbles close to his ear, his warm breath makes Tony shivers.

"For this, for these moments, for everything." Steve smells Tony's perfume in the crock of his neck, inhaling his scent.

"Thank you, too, then." The blond says.

Tony turns around still inside of the supersoldier's grip, he cups Steve's cheek bringing his lips to his, Steve leans down to cut the gap and sealing their lips. It's a passionate kiss, they don't need to say the three words because they're already inside this kiss, it screams a clear "I love you" to both of them.

Steve pulls away smiling, stroking the brunet cheek with his thumb.

"If that's a dream, please don't wake me up." They sealed their lips back together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is already written and it is the biggest chapter I've ever written!  
> Chapter 11 is almost done, too!  
> How are you dealing with a pandemic? Honestly, Writing is the only thing that is turning this quarantine bearable for me.  
> See you on Sunday!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: smut at the beginning of the chapter.

Tony feels a drop of water rolling down his spine slowly. His hair is wet and a mess right now, while he has his forehead leaned on the ceramic wall in front of him. He's gasping, and his body is half folded, his right-hand clenches in a fist when Steve thrusts deep inside him. He's gasping, too. Steve's fingers trailed a now yellow bruise on his lower back, a reminder of the first night they had sex. Steve leans and kisses it.

Tony doesn't even try to stop the loud moan that comes out of his mouth when Steve pulls out and then in again. Steve's left hand hold his hips with a tight grip, Tony knows for sure that the blond's going to leave a bruise, but he doesn't care, he loves it, he loved to look himself in the mirror and find an unexpected bruise, of course, only the ones that remember him of the amazing sex he had with Steve that ended up in those bruises. His other hand is holding his lower belly firmly, stopping Tony from move.

Steve thrusts again, and this time the hand slide from his lower belly to his cock, Steve's thumb circle the head of his cock slowly, and Tony thrust in his hand, eager for friction, Steve is good with his hands, Tony knows it now, he attempts to thrust one more against his hand eager for the blond's touch. And Steve starts to pump his cock, the sensation of pleasure takes over Tony, and the brunet lets his head falls backward, his lips parted widely with the astonishing sensation.

Steve mumbles something close to his shoulder, but Tony is too distracted with the overwhelmed pleasure that his body is receiving now to pay attention to something else. Steve does not seem to mind his lack of attention, though. He keeps pumping his cock with his amazing hands, and Tony feels his cock throbs inside Steve's hand, he's close, damn, he's so fucking close.

He feels his hole tightening around Steve's cock when he comes. White strips spiraling in the ceramic wall and Steve's hand, coming down his fingers.

Tony exhales deeply, then he feels both of Steve's hands on his hips. The blond thrust inside him, in the next thrust, Steve hits the right spot and Tony feels the pleasure spreading through his body once more. He'll never get tired of it, he'll never get tired of the feeling of having Steve inside him, it just fucking amazing.

"There" he manages to say but a moan comes out of his mouth, however, Steve seems to get what he said because the blond keeps thrusting in the exact spot. "Harder." And Steve obeys his command. Steve pulls out and goes back deeper inside him, moaning so loud that those thin walls will never be capable to muffle it.

"You like it rough, huh?" Steve hummed close to his ear, Tony can feel the warm breath sending shivers all over his body, he didn't even reply he's too caught with the amazing sex he's having now to bother it. It's insane what Steve is capable to do with him.

Then Steve drops a kiss on his shoulder before trailed kisses down his back. Tony feels Steve thrust uncertain and he knows that he's close. Steve thrust two more times before comes inside Tony. The brunet feels the hot seed fills him for a while, that's Steve way of marking him as his and Tony just loves it. He feels Steve pulling out and the seed sliding out of his hole making a trail to his thighs.

He feels Steve's head fell down on his back, the soldier's hands supporting him on the wall beside Tony's own. So, thankful, he is not putting his weight on the brunet's back.

"You good, big guy?" Tony asks, smirking. He feels Steve nods still on his back.

"Good, you?" Steve replies standing upright, and Tony turns around to face him. Steve's blond hair is sticking on his forehead due to his sweat, his lips are dry and parted. He smells to sex, just like Tony, and he thinks that's so hot.

"I'm fucking great." He whispers when Steve reaches him, his arms wrapped around his body.

Tony can hear his irregular breath. Steve leans to kiss him, Tony puts a cautious hand on his chest. "We're gonna run out of hot water if we don't stop playing, soldier." Steve snorts, but he robs a kiss from Tony anyway.

Breakfast is ready before Tony even gets dressed, he doesn't know how Steve can be so fast in the kitchen, anyway the coffee smells amazing and strong, just how he likes it. Steve doesn't enjoy coffee very much, but he keeps doing it every morning just because he knows how much Tony appreciates it.

Tony puts on a dark blue shirt and makes his way to the kitchen, Steve is putting scrambled eggs on his plate along with bread and a few blueberries, well Tony's blueberries but he doesn't mind it. Actually, it makes him remember when he first met Steve, and he can't help but smile at the memory.

"What's funny?" Steve asks before taking the fork to his mouth. Tony passes close to him, taking a few blueberries of his plate and putting it into his own mouth.

"Blueberry."

Tony takes the cereal from the counter putting some in a bowl, and he opens the fridge to reach for the milk, he adds it to the bowl, throwing away when he pours the last milk. Then, he gets the thermos and pours coffee in a white and graceless mug. He misses his mugs collection, they're certainly much funnier than this one. He smiles thinking about the Avengers' mugs collection he has at home.

Tony can't think a moment where he took better care of himself than this one. He is eating at least two meals and a few snacks, breakfast is something holy for Steve since he does not leave Tony skips it, he is sleeping seven hours per night, which is a record for Tony Stark who never stops working and tinkering. And he is happy, like he never has been before. He is proud of himself.

"We're gonna need pasta for lunch," Steve says, taking a sip of his coffee. "And some sauce, too." He adds.

Tony nods adding milk and eggs to his mental list. They have to buy exactly the quantity that they are going to use, otherwise, they would waste it and Tony hates the thought of waste food so relentlessly. They will leave in three days, three days to get in Pym Technologies again, and take the particles they need to go back home, Tony can almost sigh in relief thinking about it. There is nothing to worry about, right? Everything will work according to their plan, everything is going to be fine, he tranquilizes himself.

Steve passes right next to him to reach the sink and wash his plate and mug. He dries his hands on the towel hanging next to the sink.

"I'm gonna train, will you be alright?" Steve asks almost politely.

Tony takes another sip of his coffee, giving him a thumb up, the gym is just a few streets of the apartment, of course he'll be fine. He almost want to roll his eyes for Steve excessive care over him the last days, but he can't blame him to it, Tony was beaten up in the streets, if it was Steve in his place, he knows for sure that he would also be careful with Steve.

"Sure, I just need to go the grocery."

"See you at lunch," Steve drops a kiss on his cheek, waving to him before closing the apartment's door.

It is a quick going to the grocery store that surprisingly is empty this morning, Tony thanks God for it, the last he went there he waited fifteen minutes in the queue, and Tony really hates to wait, although he does not care to let his place waiting for him. Tony gets what they need, checking his mental list to make sure he got everything, he pays for the products and heads back to the apartment.

He decides to start making lunch without Steve, he is not going to blow up the apartment, he is sure of that. In fact, he does not blow things up quite a while now, he smiles at the thought while some improvement ideas to the Iron Man armor runs through his mind.

Tony looks to the clock to see that is already midday, and lunch is almost ready, Steve should be on his way. Tony turns on the TV, there is an old movie passing and he can just think of how Steve enjoys these old movies.

Tony distracts himself from watching the movie over the kitchen counter, he lost complete track of time. Food is ready. He glances at the clock on the counter, an hour had passed, his eyes focus back on the TV to see the final credits.

Something must be wrong. Maybe Steve had lost track of time, too and he was still training. He feels his heart pounds inside his chest with concern, it is almost painful. Tony takes the keys and heads to the gym.

He keeps telling himself that Steve is fine, he is safe and there is no need to hurry that much, but Tony can't stop walking so fast, he has to be sure, Steve would not be late, he is always punctual. He turns the corner to see the same girl from yesterday in the door, this time she is sat on a wooden box and has a cigarette in one of her hands.

"Hey!" He waves, the girl smiles to him, right before spreads an amount of smoke in his direction. "Have you seen Steve today?"

"The hot blond, guy?" Tony can't help but rolls his eyes, ignoring her compliments toward his boyfriend. He nods, agreeing that that is the one who is talking about.

"He didn't come over today." She shrugs in clear disappointment, taking the cigarette to her mouth once more. Tony furrowed.

"What? I saw him this morning, he said he'd come here." Tony says visibly confused, at the same time he feels his heart rate increasing.

"Well, he didn't." She shrugs nonchalantly, accepting the beer and the sandwich that a guy, a boxer, offers to her.

Tony thank her for the information, and he starts to make his way back to the apartment, deep down he knows that something is wrong, very wrong, indeed. Where the hell is Steve?

Tony crosses the street, and stops looking around, his hands on the top of his head while he snorts annoyed and worried. Everything is going so wrong since they came here. Tony almost hates the seventies for all the misfortunes it has brought to them, although he makes a mental note to remember that it was in the seventies that he and Steve finally got together, it does not seem so bad, after all.

He is frustrated and can't find Steve, his teammate, and now boyfriend. He kicks a can on the edge of the sidewalk, damn it! He turns around to see that the can stopped in front of the bakery, it is almost ironical since he and Steve used to go often that place, Steve loved the apple pie they served. Tony sighs at the memory. Shit, he is even talking about Steve in the past. He is a pessimist and he does not know how to deal with bad news.

Tony crosses the street back, going in the bakery. He greets the boy in the cashier and goes to the showcase, his eyes fall on the apple pie. He needs to find Steve, no matter what.

"The usual?" Tony looks up to see the red-haired girl with freckles who always take their order.

"No, I'm just..." Tony stops when he looks the spot behind her, he puts his glasses on. It is small for the actual technology, but it is there, he can see it clearly. "Do you have security cameras outside the bakery?" He tries to sound casual, but there is too much interest and a certain excitement in his voice.

"Yes, it is the latest technology, they said that the images are five times better!" She sounds excited to show her new acquisition.

"Wow, it sounds fantastic!" Tony tries to sound interested, but what he really wants is to take a good look at the footage. Steve surely must appear on them, he could know what happened or at least, have an idea. "Do you mind if I take a look? I love all this technology stuff and This one you're talking seems quite unbelievable."

She seems cautious for a while, like she is evaluating if it is a good idea to let Tony go in the security. Then, she nods, agreeing. She shouts something to the boy in the front of the bakery and waves her hand for Tony to follow her.

She takes him to a small space in the back of the bakery, there are TVs showing what is happening inside and outside. Tony holds his hand eager to touch the keyboard next to a TV. Tony found it quite hard to keep his hands to himself a few minutes while she explains the whole system to him, it is clear to him that this girl is an aspirant to technology, but she ends up here working in a bakery, and probably frustrated.

"Do you mind if I take a look at some footages? I've lost my wallet this morning when I went to the grocery store, which is close here, maybe I can see if someone took it?" He asks uncertain, because, in fact, he already asked a lot to this girl.

She nods in agreement, saying that he can take his time and she hopes that he can find his wallet, but that she has to help her brother in the bakery.

"I won't take long," Tony says, shrugging. He is already enjoying her goodwill, it is not right if he took her time, too.

When he finds Steve, he is going to buy all the pieces of apple pie he ever wanted, he is also going to give a huge tip to this girl.

Tony takes the footage back to the hour that Steve left the apartment. For some long minutes, he watches the boring video of people crossing the streets to go to work, kids accompanying their mother to the market, people taking the dog for a walk, a couple jogging, some men smoking at the corner.

Then, he spots Steve waiting obediently the traffic light indicates that it is closed. He looks carefree and genuinely happy. Tony does not remember the last time he had seen him this way, but he wanted to see Steve like this more often, he could do this, make Steve happy. Tony smiles at the thought.

His eyes come back to reality when he saw the men in the corner moving, an apparent fight surging among them, Steve turns around to see what is going on, then something hits the back of his neck because Steve takes his hand to it, Tony can see a bit of blood between the supersoldier fingers, the supersoldier turns around to see where it came from. He stumbles, the fight behind him ceases and Steve fell on his knee, he looks drunk, but Steve can't get drunk.

Tony bites his nails while watching the footage. He sees when Steve fell unconscious on the edge of the sidewalk and the men in the corner rush to get him, then a beige van stops by, opening the door, the men put Steve inside and that is it. That's how Steve disappeared, actually, he was kidnapped, but by whom? For which purpose? These questions wander in Tony's mind without being answered and it makes him anxious as hell.

He writes down the license plate of the van, he decided to make some research and look further, his priority now is to find Steve.

"Thank you for..." Tony gestures, passing by the girl in the counter, she waves a quick goodbye to him.

He walks down the street looking for other security cameras, anything that can help him to find Steve. He feels his phone chimes in his pocket. Tony frowns confused. This is not supposed to happen, mobile telephones are not even available in this time, how can this be happening? He takes the phone staring at the unknown number calling him.

"FRIDAY, Trace the call, will you?" Tony asks the AI that quickly agrees to her boss request. "They don't have this technology yet."

He picks it up curiously, for two seconds there isn't any sound on the other side of the line, then a voice came up, hoarse from years of smoking and old.

"Mr. Stark?"

"That's him," Tony said, leaning on the wall, ready to have a talk with whoever he was speaking. At the same time, he just wanted to hang up and find Steve.

"We've heard about your experiments, or machine, with time travel. I'd like to say that we are very interested in it. I'd like you to join us... To talk about business." The man spoke casually, and Tony felt the anger in his veins, how did this completely strange new about it? According to his statement, he knew that Tony wasn't a scientist from the seventies, how he knew it, Tony doesn't have any idea, he seems to know more than he should. The last time he had felt this angry was when he fought Thanos in Titan.

"Fuck you" Tony spits, his hands clenched into fists. The man chuckles as he already expects that reaction. "Who the hell are you?" People are looking at him like he is a crazy man for talking with a piece of metal on his ear. The man ignores the question.

"I assure you that your Captain is having a great time with us, Mr. Stark." Tony blinks, frozen in place, he makes several attempts of speaking, but he couldn't.

This man had Steve, he knew where Steve was and that was how he knew about the time heist, he also, probably, knows about the bracelets and the Pym particles. Shit, what had they done to make Steve talk? Tony didn't want to know, not for now, at least. He needs to make sure that Steve is fine.

"Steve. Where is Steve? What have you done to him?" Tony bits the man's bait.

"Someone once said that love is weakness, Mr. Stark. I saw that whoever said it wasn't wrong at all." He tsked.

"Stop your stupid games! Where is Steve?" Tony shouts.

He feels his eyes watery and he decides to shut it. He couldn't imagine what this man must have done to Steve to talk. He must have tortured him. This simple thought makes Tony's chest clenches in distress.

"I'm Thomas Pierce. I'm sure you'll know how to find him." That's all the man says before hanging up.

Fuck! At least, they had talked enough time to FRIDAY be able to trace the call. He looks at the location blinking on his phone screen. It's not far from where he is, but it's a recluse place, next to big factories and warehouses. He was on his own, and Steve would not like him to go, but since when Tony Stark listens to Captain America commands? He was on his way, he would find Steve and bring him back home, safe and sound. That's what they do, what they've been doing the last ten years.

Inside the cab, Tony couldn't stop thinking that the man's name sounds familiar. He can't remember where he had listened to this name before. Thomas, that is a pretty ordinary name, it was his surname that caught Tony's attention, Pierce. Pierce, Pierce, Pierce. He repeats the name inside his head, what connexion could Steve have with this man? How did they found him?

Tony can't help but question himself over and over again. He feels an anxiety attack building inside him. The billionaire turns his gaze to the window, feeling the wind on his face while he's still in the road. It does not help, matter-of-factly. He digs his nails in the palm of his hands, expecting the pain to help him to focus on what really matters: Steve.

Pierce. Pierce, Pierce. His brain keeps repeating ceaselessly. Then, Tony opens his eyes. Of course, HYDRA. HYDRA has been chasing them since they left the Base in New Jersey, somehow they found Steve and Tony hidden in San Francisco. Pierce, now he can match a face to the name. Alexander Pierce was director of SHIELD for years before Captain America unmask them. Pierce. Thomas Pierce, he must be his father. Everything starts to make sense now.

"We're here, sir." The taxi driver says.

Tony looks around, the road is empty and he is surrounded by giant warehouses, an endless amount of warehouses with some factories throwing out smoke in the air. That's the fucking end of the world, you just bring someone to this kind of place for only one reason: to kill and hide the body. A shiver passes through his spine. He fears for Steve.

Tony pays the driver and steps out of the car, he is an easy target in the middle of the road, so he walks to the next warehouse before pulling his phone out of his pocket and asks FRIDAY for the directions where the signal was emitted. When it's done, he starts to follow it. Walking bent down and in the shadows and hidden spots he can find in the middle of the afternoon.

Tony had to walk for a bunch of other warehouses before he reaches the one that FRIDAY indicates the call was made. At first, it looked like an ordinary warehouse, then Tony saw guards in their post at the entry, they carried rifles and other advanced weaponry. Tony saw vehicles parked on the left side of the place, from daily cars to big trucks, it looks that HYDRA is prepared for war.

Instantly, Tony touches his glasses twice, activating the vision for heat signatures. FRIDAY scanned the place, looking for entries, hidden spots, and traps, according to the AI scanning, his best chance is to enter for the back door, and of course, that is exactly what Tony does.

There are TVs showing the inside and outside of the warehouse when Tony enters the small room in the back of the place, luckily for him, there wasn't anyone watching these security tapes, so no one knew that he was inside of a HYDRA's base yet. Tony looked to every single place on the screen looking for Steve attentively. He has to be here, Tony thought.

Then, his eyes fell over a screen on his right side, he approaches from it. Steve was tied to a stretcher, an IV tube connected to his body, delivering some unknown substance into his body. Tony felt sick, what the hell are these infamous doing to Steve? His hand clenched to a fist, everything looks so quiet.

On the other hand, Tony had a bad feeling inside him, all the cells in his body screaming to the danger he was put himself in. Despite all the weaponry, the place does not seem active or with enough people to deal with an attack. Perhaps, they were not waiting for Tony to attack? Come on, that is HYDRA, they are merciless.

Tony took a deep breath. He would come in and take Steve out with him to the safety of their apartment, although HYDRA agents already should know where they've been living the past two weeks. Tony turned around, decided to continue with his plan, well, he only had one plan, a pretty simple one matter-of-factly: Attack.

He didn't even give a step forward, someone hits his head strongly. Tony remembers to take his hand to the place where he was hit and come back with his fingers wet on his own blood before he fell unconscious.

-

Tony did not have any idea how much time has passed, but he imagines it was hours when he recovers consciousness. His body and head were aching like hell and he tastes blood in his mouth. Memories of the day came up fast as he sat on the cold floor leaning on the wall. His hand goes to the back of his head, the place was sore but it wasn't bleeding any more.

The door opened and a man came in. He wears an elegant black suit, his hands are inside his pocket, but with Tony still wearing his glasses, he could see that this man did not carry any weapon with him.

"Mr. Stark." The man said, immediately Tony recognizes his voice, it was the same who spoke with him on the phone just this morning. "You should've warned us that you'd pay us a visit."

Tony stood up with difficulty. He might have a concussion since everything was spinning around him, and his sense of balance was completely useless by now. He puts himself straight, his eyes never leaving the man in front of him.

"I'm a guy who likes to surprise," Tony said. Thomas Pierce only chuckled like the whole situation was just pleasant to him, while Tony was just an inconvenience. "Where is Steve? What are you doing to him?" He spits. He's fed up with this stupid game.

"This is incredible, Mr. Stark. This whole thing of time travel is almost unbelievable. Fascinating!" Pierce speaks in awe. "How did you manage it? Such expertise should not be wasted." He moves close to Tony. "We need someone like you, with your brain, we would be decades forward. We could control everything."

"Fuck you." Tony touches his glasses. "You'll only have this over my dead body."

He stops right in front of Tony, his arms open wide. A slight frown between his eyebrows, a sign that we did not like being contradicted.

"You already told me that, Mr. Stark." His arms fell loose on his sides. "Besides, that is not an option. As I was saying, we need someone with your expertise. Have you imagined what you can offer to the world?"

This is enough for Tony. He feels the adrenaline flowing through his veins, in the next moment, he is holding Thomas Pierce by his collar against the wall, a switchblade dangerously close to his carotid.

"Give me the keys!" Tony shouts on the man's face.

"You'll not get away from this," Pierce smirks.

"Oh, really? As you said just minutes ago, no one has my expertise nor my technology. When your fucking system reboots I'll be already far from here. Now give me the damn keys!"

Pierce puts his hand inside of the left pocket taking out a keychain with more than ten keys. Tony takes it, asking which one opens the door of the room they are in, and which one opens the room Steve was, the man answers reluctantly. Then, Tony puts the keys inside of his jacket. He keeps holding the blade high while he walks to the door.

"You know, Mr. Stark. Cut off one head two more grow in its place"

"Then, I guess I'm about to have a fucking migraine," Tony says, walking out of the room and locking the man inside.

The warehouse was immersed in complete darkness. Tony had FRIDAY shutting down their electrical system, so the HYDRA agents were blind, they would not find Pierce for a while and they did not know that Tony was walking freely on their hallways, he had bought himself some minutes to find Steve. He had memorized the room Steve was in looks like a lab, and Tony was heading for there.

He heard footsteps in the corner and quickly opened one of the doors on the vast hallway and got in. There were archives spread over the table, but Tony didn't explore the room, Steve was his priority now and he needed to focus on that. A couple of agents pass, they did not look rush or alarmed, but as they were doing their usual patrol. As soon as they turned the corner, Tony swiped out of the room, walking swiftly in the opposite way.

He turns left, hoping that he was following the right direction, since when he came in he was unconscious, he was not sure about any direction he was taking.

However, he found himself in what seemed the infirmary, there was black glass in the place of windows, he could not see who was in, but he bet that could see the outside from inside the room. Tony started to open the doors, one by one. Steve has to be here.

He opens one of the last doors, and he immediately recognizes the blond. Steve lifts his head up to see who is coming in and his eyes widened.

"Tony?" The genius runs closer to the stretcher that Steve was tied. He looked fine, he did not have the IV tube in his veins anymore, he was just left here tied. Steve looked tired, like Tony has never seen before, not even in the battle in New York or Sokovia.

"Yep, that's me. Bold of you to assume that I'd let you here." Tony blinks, and Steve can't help but smile.

His hands work fast to untie Steve, and Tony glances at the door every second afraid of being caught, when he unties one of Steve's hands the supersoldier starts to untie the another, both working fast, he is untying Steve's right leg when he sees the knob turns.

"Get down," Steve mouths.

A doctor comes in holding a clipboard that he puts on the table, he gets a syringe aspiring the liquid of a bottle, tapping on the syringe to get rid of bubbles. He walks toward Steve, he is close enough when Steve punches him on the face. Tony hears a crack and he's sure that Steve has broken the doctor's nose. The man fell backward, his head hits the tray and his body reaches the floor unconscious.

Tony gets up approaching the man while Steve finishes untying himself. The brunet puts his hand on the doctor's neck still feeling the pulsation under his fingers. Good, he's not dead, just unconscious. He lets out a sigh of relief.

Steve is rubbing his pulses. Tony notices the red skin from where his arms were tied, he knows that Steve heals fast so the marks will be already gone when they reach the apartment, nothing to worry about. His eyes sweep the room, He gets a blood sample with Steve's name on it, discreetly he sneaks the sample inside of his pocket. He notices how many chemicals are in there. Tony's hands start to work fast, catching the products while he also reads some labels.

"What are you doing?" Steve asks, a furrow between his eyebrows.

"What I promised I'd never do again fifteen years ago. A weapon."

Tony joins the right elements, trusting his vision and experience to make sure he's putting the correct quantity, to the bomb gets the exact reaction he's expecting. This is their way out.

The lights turn on the exact moment Tony finishes his improvised bomb, when an alarm sounds loud and strident.

"We need to go," Steve says from the doorway. Tony nods, holding the bomb safely inside of his jacket.

They run blindly through the hallways, hoping that each turn would lead them to an exit. They hide inside of a room when a bunch of agents pass by.

They were doing fine. Tony feels they are running in circles when they turn one of the thousands of corners, they saw a bunch of agents aiming their guns at them, Steve retracts quickly pulling Tony with him. The bullets reach the wall.

"Fuck!" Steve curses, he glances at Tony. "Maybe it's time to put your bomb in use."

"Not now," Tony mumbles, but he is also impatiently.

Then, a voice came up in the corridor.

"Mr. Stark. Look at all the mess you've done just to rescue your Captain."

"Who is this?" Steve mumbles, looking confused at Tony.

"HYDRA's director, I think. Thomas Pierce." The brunet shrugs nonchalantly. Steve raises a brow, surprised.

Steve does not even have the time to stop him before Tony steps in the middle of the corridor, all of the guns aiming at him. Suicidal tendencies, Steve has said once, huh?

"I guess I haven't done enough if you're still alive." And Tony throws the bomb in their direction.

Steve steps in the corridor, pulling Tony again when the bullets fly in their direction, seconds before the bomb explodes, setting the whole corridor on fire. Steve leans on the wall, panting. Tony raises his gaze to see the blond's shirt bloodied.

Steve raises his hand to apply pressure on his shoulder where the bullet went through. Tony takes a step forward toward the supersoldier to check his injury, concerned. He feels his chest clenches with the sight and his breath becomes short and fast.

"It's okay, the bullet is not lodged." Steve grunts.

Tony feels his body freeze, he knows that this is a terrible moment to have an anxiety attack, but he can't stop it. Steve cups his cheek with his good arm, his hand dirt with his own blood.

"S'okay. I'll be fine, we have to go." Steve says softly taking Tony out of his trance.

Tony reacts, leading Steve through the hallways while he groans in pain. This is his fault, Tony blames himself, he shouldn't have been so reckless, but at the same time, he knew he needed to do something. Tony shakes his head trying to push away his thoughts, he needs to focus on getting out of the warehouse while the Hydra agents were running to the place of the explosion.

Tony opens a door and finds himself in the same place from where he come inside earlier. Tony looks reassuringly to Steve, and they sneak out from the back door.

People were shouting orders outside, some of them were holding their flashlights looking for the attackers, the fire was spreading quickly and the wind direction wasn't helping to stop it.

He conducts the supersoldier to the left, where he has seen vehicles, a dozen of them were still parked there for their luck. Tony pushes down the window of a vehicle, unlocking it. He opens the passenger door to Steve, and goes back to the driver seat, pulling the wires and connecting them as fast as he could. The engine sounds joyfully for Tony's relief and he drives. Dodging from the people in the middle of his way, ignoring the shouts and speeding it up on the road.

Tony looks at Steve who keeps his blue eyes shut, grimacing because of the car balance. He does not ask if Steve is okay, he is clearly not okay. He got shot, for God's sake!

"We can't go to the apartment," Steve says, opening his eyes. Tony feels his gaze on him. "They know about it, they've been following us for days."

"I know," Tony nods. "You need to go to a hospital."

"We can't go to a hospital, Tony."

He opens his mouth to argue, but he knows Steve is right. They can't go, they don't even have an ID, though Steve needs medical care.

"You need--" Steve cuts him off.

"I know. The bullet is out, and I heal fast, I'll be fine, Tony." Steve sighs. "I'm gonna need some stitches, though."

"I'm gonna get a first aid kit on the next drugstore." Tony grasps the wheel.

Tony drives them as far away as he can from the apartment they rented, they stay in silence all the way. He'll go there tomorrow morning to get their things and give the keys back to the owner, he promises himself, even though he does not like the idea to let Steve injured and alone in a hotel room.

Tony sets the first aid kit on the table in the hotel room, with some difficulty Steve takes off Tony's sweatshirt that he was wearing to not stand suspects on the hotel staff with his blood shoulder. First, he got a scissor to cut Steve's shirt, there is no way he'd raise that arm. Steve stays silently while Tony gets rid of the bloodied shirt, he pours alcohol on a towel to clean the wound.

"This is gonna hurt," Tony says, glancing up to Steve, who just nods knowing exactly what is coming.

Steve can't contain the groans of pain who come out of his mouth, and even though it disturbs Tony, he keeps cleaning the wound, he owes that to Steve, even if Steve keeps saying that is not his fault and he shouldn't apologize.

"Fuck," Steve curses when Tony finishes it. Sweat rolling down his temples.

Tony gets the needle to stitches the wound. Both of them grimace at the sight of the pointy object.

"You're sure you don't wanna go to the hospital?" Tony asks.

"Not an option," The blond mumbles. "Go ahead."

Tony passes it through his skin, and Steve struggles and fails to muffle a groan.

"I'm sorry."

"None of this is your fault, Tony. You saved us."

"I should--"

"Tony, not your fault." Steve squeezes Tony's knee slightly with his good arm.

Tony nods.

"Okay. It's just the threat is imminent..." Tony sighs. "and I feel I have to protect the one thing I can't live without, not anymore, and that's you."

"I know, " Steve says, a smile playing on his lips when he stares at Tony, which makes the brunet's lips curled up, too. Tony finishes the stitches on his arm.

"Don't move this arm."

"I heal fast." Both smiles widened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to say that I officially finished writing this story. Two more chapters left, Yay!  
> The next chapter has 7K words, bigger than this one.
> 
> Also, I'm already planning other fics, promise I'll post a SteveTony one-shot soon, and the next long fic will be around Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff.


	11. Chapter 11

"A fire devastated a warehouse in San Francisco yesterday, according to the Fire Department the fire started around 7:30 p.m. due to an electrical malfunction. The police say there were five casualties, including the director of the biomedical company, Thomas Pierce, and seven more injured. The victims were taken to the hospital..." Steve puts the TV in the mute, after seeing Tony's countenance.

Tony looks back to where Steve is standing with a towel on his good hand drying his wet hair and the other hand holding the TV control.

"I told you not to move this arm." Tony sighs, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Tony's eyes snap back to the TV. Images of the burnt warehouse were showing, in the corner of it, there was a photo of the supposed director of the company. Tony rolls his eyes. Then the journalist appears back on the screen. Tony looks down, stirring his hands nervously.

Steve sats beside him, his hand moving up and down on Tony's back offering comfort.

"It's not your fault, Tony."

Steve repeats for the hundredth time since last night when they arrived at the hotel, this does not make Tony feels any better, it was him who made that bomb, all the deaths and injured's weight was on his back. He had broken a promise he has done to himself, and he was feeling the consequences of it. Tony passes his fingers through his hair.

"We have to made to a decision. We did what had to be done. This is on me, too." Steve says softly, but Tony can feel the sourness and the chagrin on his voice. "We did this together." The blond reaches for his hand, squeezing it as a way to console him.

Tony nods still feeling the thick lump of his throat, his mouth dry with angst. He tries to convince himself that Steve was right, they did what had to, HYDRA was a bad organization after all. Steve has been frozen seventy years ago trying to defeat them. His parents were killed because HYDRA had brainwashed and made Bucky Barnes a weapon, they created Project Insight and they were willing to kill thousands of innocent people. Steve is right.

He turns to meet Steve's gaze before nods his head agreeing with the blond, Tony takes a deep breath, standing up and going into the small table's direction, he takes the aid kit and turns back to the supersoldier.

"We need to change those bandages."

A small smile appears on the supersoldier's lips. Tony sat back on the bed, his hand starting to work on Steve's shoulder, he can't deny that he is a bit surprised when he takes off the bandage and see that the appearance is a lot better than yesterday, Steve indeed heals fast, faster than he thought.

"So, tomorrow," Steve starts the conversation, Tony glances up. "Hank Pym is back at his company, and we can get the particles to get back."

Steve's voice sounds almost sad with the statement, and Tony understands it. Going back means to face their problems, Thanos' snap, bring everyone back, - not that this is bad, far from it, they have mourned for their vanished friends for five long years -, but deep down they were done from the all the battles. Since New York, nothing has been the same.

"I know, Steve."

"It's not gonna be easy, but we can do it."

"Are you sure you want to come? I can do it on by myself," Tony reassures the blond. "Then, we can get the Tesseract and go back."

"The plan involves two people."

"Not exactly. It can be easily reduced to one person."

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that."

Tony smiles at Steve's answer while he finishes the bandages on his shoulder, even the blond can't help but smiles. Tony leans and drops a sweet and tender kiss on Steve's lips. Deep down he was relieved for Steve being safe. Tony moves away, but Steve pulls him back for another kiss, this one is needy and smooth as they haven't kissed a long time. It's warm and sweet, and Tony can't get enough of it.

He slides his hands on Steve's side, getting closer to the supersoldier warm body. The sun is shining high in the sky, and Tony knows he needs to go to the apartment, get their things back, and then he can come back and cuddle Steve. This thought makes him smile between the kiss before he pulls away.

"I need to go," He mutters. "You should get some rest."

Steve sighs, but he nods in agreement just before leans in and kisses Tony again.

"I'll be back soon,"

"Be careful," Steve says, squeezing Tony's hand.

Tony leaves. The hotel is not so far from their old rented apartment, but it keeps a safe distance since Hydra knew where they were. Tony knows that this is not the end of Hydra, in that warehouse, there were only a few soldiers and Pierce, Hydra is everywhere, there are plenty of them, but they'll keep themselves hidden in the Army and in SHIELD. Tony imagines that whoever is in charge now must not be happy about the damages that he and Steve caused, well, mostly him.

Tony walks lost in his thoughts, he leaves his feet to guide him all the way, when he is close to his old neighborhood he walks fast and kind of nervous, looking around to check if he is not being followed, which he thinks is unlikely, but better safe than sorry, right?

Everything looks exactly the same. The same old building with the painting chipping, and the ugly garden in front of it, the lawn maintenance is nonexistent here. Tony makes his way to the apartment, he rolls the knob to find the door opened, he is unarmed but he got in without hesitate. Strangely, everything looks in its place, Tony verify every room making sure that the apartment is empty, whoever broke in did not care to take anything out of place.

So, Tony starts to put their things inside a bag, which is not much, just their clothes, hygiene products, and Steve's sketchbook. That's when he remembers the floor plan of Pym Technologies that he had stolen a week ago, it is the only thing missing in the entire apartment.

"Son of a bitch," Tony mumbles, letting out an exasperate and heavy sigh.

Tony goes to the kitchen to take what is missing, and he sees a folder on the countertop. He furrows, sure that it wasn't there when he left yesterday. Tony approaches it, checking the note left on the folder, "this is not over" it says, and Tony knows for sure that it is Hydra.

He flips through the folder, taking glimpses of the material in it, his jaw clenched with the things he is reading. Tony closes the folder abruptly, shoving it angrily inside the bag. Fuck. Everything is messed up. He needs to show it to Steve, as well as he also needs to know what happened to Steve while they are in that warehouse.

Tony slams the door of the apartment, going straightly to the owner's house, when he knocks it is her niece who comes to the door, Tony throws to her a sour smile remembering that she has a crush on his boyfriend, however, she calls her aunt very quickly. The owner shows herself sad when Tony gives back the keys, and thanks her for the short accommodation and he bids her goodbye and leaves. It will be better for everyone.

There is nothing unusual on his way back to the hotel, he keeps an attentive look around himself, but he does not seem to be followed, actually, he expected Hydra to back off for a while given the fire. There are a lot of tourists in front of the hotel, speaking several languages, Tony supposes that they are waiting for a mean of transportation for tourists attractions, which is none of his business.

When he opens the door for him and Steve's room, he sees that the blond is asleep for his relief. Steve went through a lot yesterday and they haven't talked about it yet, but what it is in the folder is true, then he needs to know what exactly happened while Steve was in that improvised infirmary.

Tony sats on his bed, taking the folder out of the bag and putting the rest of thing aside. He reads the content attentively, his eyes widening in shock and horror when he keeps reading further. What Hydra is trying to do is inhuman and unnatural.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" He listens to Steve's voice from the bed behind him.

Tony looks behind to see a Steve rubbing the sleep away from his eyes while he yawns.

"You need to rest"

"Guess I got enough rest," Steve says, standing up and getting Tony's jacket, the same he was wearing yesterday. "What is that?" Steve takes a small tube with a blood sample out of one of the pockets. "Where did you get this?"

Tony looks at Steve, he opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out, he just ignores the questions Steve had asked.

"Wait, are you fumbling on my things?" Tony raises a brow incredulously.

"Don't dodge the question, Tony."

"No, I'm serious. Why are you fumbling on my things, Steve?" Steve cheeks reddened, and Tony is not sure if he is ashamed because he was caught or if he is angry for Tony hides something from him.

"Well, not my fault if you let your thing everywhere. Your jacket was on the floor, I caught it and this tube fells. It was luck that it didn't break."

"Shit," Tony says, throwing the jacket in a chair. "I found it on the lab you were, it's a blood sample of yours." Tony rolls the tube between his fingers, then he raises his gaze to look at Steve. "Steve, what happened when you were there?"

Steve sits back on the bed facing Tony.

"I don't know I was unconscious, I guess. I remember some glimpses, but that's all."

Tony sits on the bed, too, in front of Steve, blood sample still rolling on his fingers, he reaches for the supersoldier's hand.

"What do you remember?"

"Doctors. They took blood samples like that that you're holding, a lot of those, actually." Steve frowns like he was remembering something unpleasant. "Pain. I remember someone mentioned the bone marrow." Steve gets up, exasperate, passing his fingers through his hair. "Shit, I don't remember much."

"It's okay, honey." Tony looks to the void. "Fuck, so it's true." He mumbles to himself.

"What is true?" Steve turns to him. "Tony?"

The billionaire gets the folder on the other side of his bed. Steve approaches curiously, sitting on the bed again.

"I found this in our kitchen counter." Tony hands the folder to Steve. "Hydra is doing experiments in humans, modifying their DNA to enhance them, and apparently, working in human cloning."

Steve looks in horror.

"What? That's..." Steve starts to say, but then he looks back to the papers on his hands, flipping through the pages.

Tony knows. There are no words to describe this whole fucking project. It seems impossible and unreal, but here they are, inside this folder there are the names of victims and the complete experiment report, most of them did not survive to the procedures and the ones who did had suffered several damages, physically and emotionally.

"I know it's a lot," Tony says. "I think they might've considered you because of the serum. Technically, you're already enhanced, they just need to clone you." There's a bit of worry on his voice.

"That's awful. That's terrible, Tony." Steve paces back and forth in the room. "We need to stop this."

"We can't. We have to go back, Steve."

"They can't keep doing this."

"I don't think they were successful. Hydra was exposed and taken down in 2014 by you, Natasha and Fury. We can't change this timeline, we would screw everything up." Tony says calmly, but he understands Steve's anger. After Tony learns that HYDRA was doing human experimentation, he stopped feeling bad for the warehouse.

He wanted to take down Hydra as much as Steve, but they can't do it now. They had a mission, take the tesseract, and go back to 2023. Bring half of the universe back was their priority now, they can't lose focus, Steve knows it.

Steve nods silently, but Tony can see that he still did not accept this idea, he feels like they should act and stop it right now.

"There's something else." Steve raises his head to stare at Tony. "They took the floor plan."

"Fuck!" Steve's hand turns into a fist, Tony startles when the supersoldier punches the table.

"Calm down there, big guy." Tony puts a hand on Steve's shoulder, squeezing it in a sign of comfort. "That's not a problem, since I'm good at memorizing this kind of stuff. The big question here is, why the hell they would take the floor plan and leave that behind?"

Steve nods following his train of thought. They don't have answers, not yet, at least, but they are sure that Hydra will chase them and they must be planning something for tomorrow when Steve and Tony break in Pym Technologies, so they must be ready for whatsoever is coming.

That night, dinner was tasteless. Tony did not have an appetite after everything that had happened, Steve seems to feel the same, but he made sure that both of them were well fed and rested, they would need strength for tomorrow, since a fight against Hydra seems inevitable.

Tony couldn't stay still. This just worsens his anxiety, he was utterly aware of his obsessive behavior into folding the clothes he got from the apartment, making sure that everything was symmetric and in the right piles. He probably must have folded that Steve's blue shirt for the eighth time and it still seems wrong for him. Fuck, why can't he just lay down and sleep?

It was late, there is so much to be done tomorrow and here Tony Stark is, folding clothes non-stop because he can't turn his mind off for a damn second, he can't stop thinking about everything that can go wrong tomorrow, and how risky this mission to steal two Pym particles is.

"Can't sleep?"

Steve's voice is hoarse and sleepy. Tony wishes he could sleep just like Steve was doing a few minutes ago before Tony sighed exasperatedly for his own lack of sleep. That's his fault, wake Steve, he means. He also knew that the painkiller was the reason for Steve being so sleepy. Tony probably should take some of them, perhaps he would fall asleep. The brunet sighed anew.

"I can't turn off my mind from everything that happened these past two weeks."

Steve sat up, his back against the head of the bed, he pats his side to indicate that Tony must come and sit. The billionaire got the message, making his way to Steve's bed.

When he sits, Steve pulls him closer to his chest right away. Tony snuggles against him. Steve's body is warm and comfortable, the physical contact makes him feel real. Touch. Touch something, an object hot or cold could be capable to bring the sense of reality when he felt these anxiety attacks. He just needs to hold this object in his hands tight, feels its form and flaws under his fingers, its heat, to make sure that it is real, to bring him back to think straight. Right now, Steve's warm skin was the thing bringing him back slowly to reality.

He traces nonsense lines on the blond's skin, feeling the warmth under his fingers. Tony lets his body relax against Steve's. The supersoldier's jaw setting on the top of his head.

"It's okay, Tony," Steve mutters calmly, rubbing his hand on Tony's biceps. "It's okay." He drops a kiss on his forehead.

And Tony knows that everything will be alright. His body is just overreacting, he should have known by now that his body betrays him, he is not dying, and he won't go crazy, he should not trust his body. He feels his eyes heavy, his heartbeats slowly matching with Steve's as well as his breathe. It's okay, his mind repeats like a tranquilizer, like a lullaby to himself. It's okay. It's okay.

Tony wakes up with the smell of fresh croissants. It smells marvelous. Steve must have asked for the hotel's breakfast, turns out, Tony has picked a decent hotel this time. No need for more creepy places, he has not sold one of his favorite watches for nothing.

He blinks till his eyes adjust from the lights. Steve comes out of the bathroom buttoning his blue shirt, the same that Tony was folding non-stop last night. The blond's blue eyes met his when Tony is rubbing his eyes, he's still sleepy, he should've slept five hours this night or least.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Steve says, catching Tony's full attention, he leans to drop a kiss on top of his head. "They just brought breakfast."

Tony's brown eyes sweep the room. He notices that the bag he had brought from their old apartment was zipped, everything they had collected since they got stuck in 1970 was in that bag, already packed. Tony mentally thanked Steve for that.

The aid kit was on Tony's bed, of course, Steve would need to change the bandages before they go. Although Tony did not like the idea of Steve coming with him, he was still recovering from the bullet wound, but Tony knew very well that the supersoldier was as stubborn as himself, so Steve wasn't changing his mind.

"Morning, Steve." He got up to pour himself some coffee, because coffee was sacred for Tony, and the day only begins after his a sip of coffee. "So, it's today."

"Yeah," Steve replies sounding carefree while he pours coffee and milk to himself. "Ready?"

Tony chuckles.

It's a simple and silly plan, they both knew it is going to work, the main concern for them was dealing with Hydra, supposing that they would break in the building.

"I'm fine. Better than last night, indeed." He shrugs.

Steve is not the kind of person who hides his emotions, Tony sees clearly that Steve doesn't believe him. And Tony knew that he was not fine, not with Hydra chasing them and harming civilians to reach them.

Breakfast is eerily quiet. Sometimes, Steve asks him if he knows what to do if the situation got complicated, he answers calmly each question. Tony knows that Steve is doing it to keep him away from his own toxic, self-loathing and destructive thoughts. He can't blame the blond for an attempt, also it's a good way to repass the steps on his mind.

Tony dresses the clothes they have stolen from the Army's base laundromat again, the badge clipped on the lab coat says that he is Howard Potts, an engineer, physician, and professor from MIT. As to Steve, that is the first part of the plan, to get Steve in. Tony needs to steal a card from one of the securities guards, get a uniform from the staff room, and hand it to Steve from the back door. Once this is done, they would be able to circle in all offices and labs with the ID card from the security guard.

Once the cab driver drops them near to their destination, Tony acts as planned. He passes through security with no further problems, his technology for the badge is pretty persuasive for old-fashioned eyes, Tony brags.

Pym Technologies seems unusually crowded today, and Tony notices it from the hall, some workers were decorating the place, which makes Tony thinks that maybe they would be celebrating soon, or it also could be an event to inform and update their interns about the newest techs that were presented in the congress Hank Pym attended.

Tony is quick to steal the card hanging from the backward pocket from a security guard flirting with one of the receptionists. Why does it look so easy? The philanthropist starts to think, but quickly shakes his head, no need to wonder right now, he needs to focus, and they can't screw this up again, otherwise, bye-bye 2023 and half of the universe.

-

"What took you so long?" Steve asks a bit impatient when Tony hands him the clothes he had stolen just a few minutes ago.

"It's not so easy finding clothes for your size," Tony complains, pushing the clothes against Steve's chest.

Steve doesn't reply back instead he starts to unbutton his shirt.

They're in the security room in the back of the building, the cameras show every office, room and lab inside included Hank Pym's office who is leaving his office in this exact moment, Tony's eyes follow him for a moment but he's distracted by a shirtless supersoldier.

Tony observes his abs and biceps taking off the shirt, he watches each move Steve does attentively with desire. Steve sighs noticing his stare.

"Can you stop it?" Steve says, and Tony sees his boyfriend blushing by the unwanted attention.

"Why? There's nothing I haven't seen before." Tony replies sassy. Steve sighs loudly and turns around. "You know, the view is even better from behind," Tony notices Steve's lips curls up by his comment, but he does not say anything else.

Tony looks back to the TV showing the ambiance that's when two workers caught his attention one of them puts his hand on his gun, but the other one puts his hand above the first stopping his for whatever he was thinking in doing.

"Steve," Tony calls.

Steve approaches the black and white TV, Tony indicates the two men in the hall.

"Shit. We have to go."

Tony agrees following Steve out of the security room. They walk with a rush through the corridors, at some point, Tony has to hold Steve's wrist to slow him down, after all, they don't want to call attention to themselves. They need to act like everyone else, like they are part of the place.

They stop at Hank's office.

"You go in. I stay here in case of having to deal with uninvited people." Tony whispers.

Steve acquiesces.

Tony stays on the corner of the hallway watching scientists, interns, and staff people doing their daily and boring activities in their respective departments. Some interns pass by talking about a lecture scheduled for today, so Tony was right, there is a scientific event occurring in the hall, as well as Hydra agents looking around for them.

Five minutes had passed since Steve went into the office when Hank appears again walking straight to Tony's direction. Damn it, Tony thinks, taking a step forward to stop Hank.

The man looks confused at him.

"May I help you?" Then, he looks at Tony's badge. "Professor Potts?"

"Huh? I--" Tony stammers, looking back to see Steve closing the door. "I'd like to thank you, doctor Pym, for..." Tony switches the weight of his body from one foot to another. Hank looks confused at him, but he waits for whatever Tony has to say. "I--, actually, I'd like to say that I highly admire your work, these prototypes you're working on, uh." He whistles. "they're revolutionary. I'm certain that it's gonna help plenty of people in the future."

Tony sees Steve going in the direction of the elevator. Steve turns back to him and shook his head. No. There are no Pym particles in Hank's office. Of course, he should have known better, it is probably in one of the labs, but they did not have the time to check each one.

"Thank you, professor. I'd like to believe you're right," Hank replies. "Are you visiting?"

Tony looks back to Hank.

"I--huh, yeah,"

"Good, I see you're from MIT. That's great. What are you working on?"

Steve bounces his leg impatiently while he waits for the elevator to come up.

"Clean energy."

"Wow, looks promissory." Hank seems a bit fascinating. "Would you like to visit the labs? Is there anyone guiding you around here?"

"Uh, yes." He points to Steve. "He's guiding me."

Hank looks back to see who Tony is pointing, he frowns a little confused but quickly recovers his wise countenance.

"Hum. My assistant is a little busy today with this lecture thing, but I can guide you around the labs. Then, Mr..." Hank glances at Steve badge, one that Tony had improvised. "Mr. Rogers can guide you to the other departments."

"Of course, that would be great," Tony replies, perhaps too quickly.

There's bell sign, then the elevator doors open on the floor, Steve slides in followed by Hank and Tony.

Hank asks Tony about the project he is developing, he seems genuinely interested in Tony's idea about clean energy to the world and the benefits it can bring to the countryside and how it can have an impact on disadvantaged populations all around the globe. Steve remains silent all the way down, but Tony knows that the supersoldier is attentive to every person who comes in and out of the elevator.

Tony feels good to have someone to talk about his projects other than Pepper and Bruce. He had been working hard on these for the past ten years since he decided to shut down the weapons manufacture in Stark Industries.

Many people had told him that Stark Industries would bankrupt, they've been designing weapons for such a long time and they would break a huge contract with the military, but Tony needs to do it. He was right, after all, his projects, beyond weapons, have been a success and restore the glory and dignity that his own enterprise had lost while killing innocent people. That was one of the few decisions in life that Tony didn't regret at all.

The elevator emitted a bell sign again and the door opened to reveal a corridor filled with several labs well-equipped, any project could be developed in here, and they definitely had the best technology of the seventies.

Hank pointed to the labs indicating their function and the projects that were being developed in them. Well, the Pym particles must've been somewhere here down here, and now that he and Steve were there they could look carefully to find it, it shouldn't take too long now.

For a second Tony hears Steve lets out a soft gasp, Tony looks back to his boyfriend and Steve tilts his head in the direction of a lab. Tony's eyes follow the direction and he sees a dozen of Pym particles on a counter, Hank Pym's name is stamped on the door, which means this is his private lab. There is a digicode on the door. Tony nods to Steve showing that he had understood, they need to get rid of Hank so they can get in.

Hank is talking excitedly about all his initiatives to bring young people to work as a scientist and develop a critical sense on their own projects, he also says that Pym Technologies are working on an exchange program for next summer. A student comes in their direction a little rush.

"Professor Pym?" The student says uncertain, he only continues when Hank stares at him. "Professor Evans requires you in his lab, something about a non-approved project, I think." The student slipped out looking uncomfortable.

Hank sighs loudly.

"I have to handle this, Potts. Wait here, I'll be back in a minute, I still want to show you our new generator." Hanks pats Tony's back and leaves following the student.

"Guess that's our signal," Steve says by his side.

"Yeah, it is."

A group of students get out of a lab making their way to the elevator. When the doors close Tony knows that they need to act fast before anyone sees them or Hank comes back from his little discussion with whoever professor Evans is.

Tony touches his glasses twice.

"FRIDAY, look for fingerprints." Tony stands in front of the digicode while the AI reveals the numbers touched by Hank, probably earlier when Steve and Tony had seen him coming down on the cameras.

Tony types the numbers, and they hear a click when the door opens. Tony sneaks in the room while Steve watches the door, quickly Tony slides four Pym particles inside the pocket on his lab coat. They only need two particles one for each, but Tony believes that it is better safe than sorry, they could break one of them accidentally on their way to Malibu. He just hopes that it does not happen in fact.

"Shit!" Steves hisses.

Tony glances up to see Steve closing the door and mouthing him to stand down behind the counter. Tony spies above the counter just to see the two workers they have seen earlier on the security cameras, passing in the hallway, they stop close to Hank lab, one of them says something to the other who looks annoyed, unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, Hank's lab is soundproofing.

"We take the stairs, alright?" Steve says appearing by his side.

"Okay."

The elevator doors are almost closing when Tony and Steve step out of the room. Well, almost, because the two Hydra agents spot them.

"Holy shit!" Tony swears when one of the agents stops the door with his foot.

"Run, now!" Steve shouts pulling him in the stairs' direction.

Steve and Tony know very well that those are not the only agents inside here, and they could be running right to a trap, however, they did not have many options to consider.

Tony leads them to the closest emergency exit for what he remembers from the floor plan. One more agent appears from the elevator.

"We should split up," Tony suggests.

"No way," Steve replies.

"They're gonna corner us," Tony argues.

"Then, we fight."

The first agent comes in Tony's direction, something in his hand. He tries to punch Tony but he dodges easier than he thought. The other two agents go for Steve.

With a single punch from Steve, one of the agents falls unconscious on the floor. Tony kicks the agent in front of him, making him hit the wall with his back, the agent bounces unsteady he uses his hands to restore the balance, the object he was holding falls next to him, and Tony notices it is a syringe before the man tries to reach it Tony punches him on the jaw, the man grits his teeth angrily and rushes over Tony, pushing the brunet through a glass wall, pieces of glass flight everywhere when both Tony and the Hydra agent hit the floor.

With the agent on top of him, Tony moves his knee up hitting him on the stomach, the man groans in pain and closes his hands around Tony's neck. Tony's eyes widened while he gasps for air, his hands moving on the floor looking for something, anything to hit the guy. Tony's hand closes around a piece of glass that cut his own palm, but he ignores the pain raising the glass and hitting the Hydra agent on the neck.

The man's eyes widened surprised and in horror when the blood starts to wet his shirt, Tony pushes him up taking the weight out of him while the man grunts on the floor, incapable of moving and probably dead in a few minutes.

Tony gets up, takes the syringe with him, and runs toward Steve who is still fighting the agent. The man didn't expect Tony to attack him from behind with a syringe on his neck. The man stumbles and falls beside the other agent, both unconscious.

Tony glances up at Steve. He doesn't even have a reaction when more men come downstairs. Steve takes Tony by the wrist pulling him downstairs, they need to reach the ground floor and find an emergency exit, they need to get the hell out of that place, because they already caused too much damage.

They run through the labs, this place is a fucking maze. Luckily the event should already begin because there aren't any civilians in that floor.

"We're screwed!" Tony shouts.

They both know that they are.

When they finally can get rid of the agents, they hid inside a lab, ready to fight with anyone who comes over. Tony takes a deep breath, leaning against the wall. Well, these are the moments he envy Steve and that supersoldier serum, because Steve seemed fine, he wasn't panting as Tony to recover his breath, even if they ran through the stairs.

"You're okay?" Steve whispers close to him.

Tony doesn't answer. He hears footsteps outside and he imagines that those agents are not going to give up, they are willing to look in each lab and room if that means to find them.

"They do not give in," Tony mutters.

Steve locks those blue eyes on him.

"No, they don't." He agrees.

Tony slides a hand inside his pocket to feel the four particles, they weren't broken, at least not yet. He sighs, and he is not sure if it is because he is relieved, although there is nothing to be relieved, or if it is just because he is tired. Deep down inside him, he's done with fighting.

There is a loud noise when the door comes down, and Hydra agents come in. Steve reacts first. Damn those supersoldier reflexes! Tony fights back, always having FRIDAY assistance studying the enemies fighting patterns, but even with this, all his advanced technology, they are clearly outnumbered.

Hydra was willing to chase them down, no matter what it costs. They not only wanted the Tesseract with its powerful energy, they wanted Steve and the serum that ran through his veins. They wanted an army. Apparently, one based on human cloning army with Steve's skills.

Tony looks around, looking for something that he could use against them. This is a chemical lab with high and dangerous chemics on the shelves and desks.

Steve pushes a Hydra agent against one of the desks in the lab. The man falls on it, breaking glasses filled with chemicals, spreading it all on the desk and the floor. Another man comes over Steve hitting him on the shoulder, right where the bullet wound is healing. Steve grunts in pain, quickly recovering himself and knock out the man.

"Fuck," Tony mumbles, twisting an agent's arm and pushing him against another one, both stumbling on one's another and falling through the glass door.

Another agent ran over Tony, making him falls on the cold ground with pieces glass, which Tony feels those pieces dig into his arm through the lab coat. He mumbles all the swearing words he ever knows.

Then, he narrows his eyes to see what looks exactly like a bomb, the liquid of chemicals going exactly to it, which Tony knows that it can cause a chain reaction and powered the bomb. Yet, Steve is so close to it.

"Steve!" Tony shouts in an attempt to alert him.

Steve takes two steps back, the distance between him and the bomb grows a little, and the blond turns his head to Tony's direction. Tony opens his mouth to shout, to say something, but there is no time.

The bomb explodes, throwing everyone in the lab backward.

Tony feels his ears whirring. He is aware that this is happening because he was close to the explosion. He blinks, there is smoking covering the room, there are desks on fire, and damn it, why is the room spinning? He feels dizzy.

There's hand on his shoulder forcing him to stand up. Tony blinks again trying to focus on something, on someone, in a matter-of-fact. He stares at Steve, the supersoldier is shouting something, but he can't listen, the whirr in his ear are too loud now. He feels Steve's arm wraps around his waist pulling him out of the lab.

Tony feels useless, he doesn't even know where Steve is taking him. Steve is coughing because of the smoke he inhaled, Tony listens to it. The whirr seems to be fading while they walked through the hallways. They turn a corner, there is a door at the end of it, and also a sign above it, red sign which Tony narrows his eyes in an attempt to read it. Exit, it says.

Steve pushes the door and they are welcomed with the sunlight, Steve raises his arm to block his eyes from the sudden light and Tony closes his own. Fresh air invades his lungs, it is almost sweet. They hear sirens still far from here. Steve takes his arm from Tony's waist, taking his hand to his mouth while he coughs. Tony stays still, he opens his eyes to see smoke coming out of the building, a part of it on fire. Damn, they caused a big damage. They always cause a big damage, Tony corrects himself.

Steve leans next to the exit, his face is covered with ashes and Tony supposes that his own face is probably covered it, too. Tony takes a breath, but he chokes on it due to the inhaled smoke.

"You're alright?" Tony says, approaching Steve.

"I think so," Steve replies, his lips curling up to a half-smile. "You?"

Tony looks down checking himself.

"M' fine."

Tony bites his bottom lip until his mouth tastes blood. A terrible habit of his when things don't go as planned and he feels like he should find a solution.

"We should leave before the police find us here." Tony finally speaks looking around.

Steve chuckles looking defeated. Tony frowns, that wasn't exactly the reaction he had expected from the blond.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere, Tony." Steve raises his arm to show his time GPS completely destroyed due to the impact of the explosion when he was thrown backward.

Tony sighs, completely overwhelmed by the view of it. Okay, that's far from unexpected. It definitely wasn't supposed to happen, none of this was supposed to happen, actually, Tony had put them through this, but right now he has no time to regret it. They both know there is no solution to find here, with the technology available in the seventies Tony is not able to make another one, or even test the safety of it if he succeed to recreate it one day.

Tony slides his hand to the pocket again. He feels his fingers sting against the broken glass inside of it, when Tony slips his hand out and open it, he sees only two Pym particles left, the other two were reduced to pieces.

He looks back to Steve who steps forward closing the distance between them. Steve puts his hand on the sides of his arms.

"It's okay, Tony." He whispers softly and reassuringly.

Tony looks inside of those blue eyes he loves. God, he loves Steve. He acknowledges it best than ever now. He's not going back without his lover.

"It's okay. I--I belong here anyway." Steve closes his eyes to stop the tears from rolling down.

 _All of it looks so wrong,_ Tony thinks.

It couldn't be happening, there is no way that he would leave Steve behind.

"No," Tony shakes his head in utter denial, the tears prick his brown eyes.

Steve cups Tony's face with his hands, he approaches even more and bring their foreheads together.

"It's okay. You need to go back, I-I'll be fine, you," Steve tries to swallow the lump forming in the throat. "You belong to 2023. Your life is there. I-I'll be fine, Tony."

Tony feels the tears rolls down his cheeks, tasting the salty liquid on his lips, then tasting Steve's own tears when he kisses him.

Tony looks down to his own Time GPS on his arm, showing random numbers, it looks like it also was damaged, this he could fix it, he didn't want to. Tony smiles, and Steve follows his gaze. The blond opens his mouth, but Tony cuts him off.

"Our first night here you said we'd do this together right?" Steve nods. "So we'll do this together too."

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but Tony seals their lips together again.

"My life is where you are," Tony whispers while Steve rubs their lips together.

"What about the Tesseract?" Steve asks.

Oh, right. That, of course, the main reason for this whole mess.

"We're gonna keep it safe. We'll leave the coordinates to the others, when they find it, they'll bring everyone back safely."

Steve holds his hand, leaning to kiss it.

"I love you, Tony."

Tony grins, and tiptoeing he leans against Steve's body, sealing their lips together on a gentle and passionate kiss once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might not be what y'all expected. Share your thoughts on the comments, I'd love to know what you think about this chapter, and please, do not hate me.  
> Also, there's a 10K Steve and Tony one-shot coming out this week. Pretty much fluff, I love to write fluffy.


	12. Chapter 12

_Avengers Compound,_

_New York, 2023._

The first lights of dawn hit Natasha's face waking her up, she hadn't even realized that she fell asleep last night. She raises her hand to shield her eyes for the morning light. Natasha groans while sitting up straight, definitely sleeping on a chair wasn't the best idea, she should've brought a mattress to this area of the compound, although she has never meant to sleep.

"Shit." She mumbles to herself, rubbing her eyes to get rid of the sleepy sensation.

The sun was glowing on the horizon, the birds were chirping, everything give her signals that this is going to be a marvelous morning, but Natasha knew it wouldn't. Her mornings were not the same since the snap, it has been this way for the past five years.

She looked around, Bruce was nowhere to be seen what made her wonder if her friends had come back. She grabbed the empty coffee mug and headed to the kitchen.

The place was empty, of course, it was still 5 a.m, Natasha knew that the other avengers wake up around 6 and 8 a.m, but she kind of expected to see Steve up, ready to go for a morning run, he wasn't there, he didn't have come back from yesterday time heist, neither him or Tony and no one knew why, not even Bruce had answers.

Scott had come back alone, he said that he and Tony had lost the Tesseract for Loki in 2012, then Tony had this crazy idea of going back to 1970 to recover the Tesseract and find the Pym particles to come back, it all seems simple to everyone. Natasha was determined to wait for them, so she pushed a chair and sat in front of that machine waiting. She felt frustrated, worse, she felt lonely.

Not only Tony and Steve were missing. Clint also hasn't come back, he's gone for forever, sacrificed himself for that damn soul stone in Vormir, there is no going back for him, at least for Steve and Tony she could still have hope, she believes that they can find a way back somehow, after all, she couldn't lose them, too. She is already mourning Clint, she could not handle losing her two other friends. Right?

She throws the mug in the sink and walk to the living room. It's weird that her last memory from this room was that she was agreeing with Tony for the accords, the Civil War wasn't exactly a happy memory, it was in this moment that everything seems to go to shit.

She sat cross-legged and she can almost hear Tony complaining and asking her to take her filthy feet out of the couch, Am I running a bed and breakfast for a biker gang? He would say. It makes her a laugh, a sad and loud laughter. She never thought she would miss him so much.

Natasha just hoped that wherever they are, they are fine. She also expects that they finally had confessed their feeling for each other, because after everything that they went through they really deserved to be happy.

She sighs concerned, rubbing her hands all the way on her face to her hair. A door opens and she turns to see who is coming in.

"Are they back?" Bruce asks, a slight smile on his face that fades away slowly when he sees Natasha's countenance.

"No."

Bruce sighs hopelessly, making his way to the kitchen and prepare himself a tea. He raises a mug to Natasha with a lifted brow, a clear question behind his eyes asking her if she wants some tea, honestly, she wasn't the tea girl, right now, she'd rather a bottle of vodka or gin, that would be perfect to forget all this shitty world. She shakes her head negatively.

A few minutes pass until Bruce joins her in the room. He is sipping his tea quite peacefully, which annoys her a little bit. She is fucking worried about her friends.

"You said it would take 10 seconds," Natasha says accusingly. "What went wrong?"

Bruce's eyes lay on her, watching and studying her. Natasha didn't blame him, of course, but she really want answers. She needs them. It takes one or two minutes to Bruce replies, he shrugs.

"I don't know." He takes a sip of the warm liquid, it smells good. "A lot could go wrong, Nat. Everyone knew the risks. Tony better than anyone, why do you think he refused to help at first?"

She keeps her green eyes fixed on him for a moment, she dodges it when she feels her eyes watery. She shrugs as an answer to Bruce's question.

Tony had alerted them to what could go wrong, he had listed every single one of them, still, he went there, he found a solution, he made it happen and now he was lost in a time-space machine he had created himself just to bring the loved one of someone in the world back. That's kind, inspirational and selfless. She was wrong about who Tony Stark is.

That report she wrote for S.H.I.E.L.D. years ago was wrong, it means nothing, because Tony is one of the best human beings in the world. She couldn't see it before, but now, she would remember him. If he was really stuck, he and Steve, she would make sure the world remembers them as the purest and kindest heroes. She owes them that. She owes it to Tony.

"If anything changes, call me," Natasha says standing up and ready to go for her room.

Natasha wasn't the kind affective and sentimental when it comes to objects. Her room used to be extremely minimalist, with only her basic possessions, although when Tony set them in he had told that all of them are free to decorate their rooms the way that they wanted, it was their home, after all.

She didn't take it seriously when she moved in, keeping only the necessary, some clothes, a few souvenirs from her sister, and hygiene materials. That's all. Then, after the snap, she stood in the compound more often and now she felt she was in home, matter-of-factly. The five years she spent here gave her enough time to redecorate it the way she wanted

She jumps on her unmade bed, laying on her back, her eyes fixed on the white ceiling. Home and family, she thinks before she drifts.

Natasha woke up two hours later. No nightmares, no calls from Bruce. No Clint. No Steve and Tony. She can't lose her hopes, that what she keeps telling herself since yesterday.

She turns on her side. She doesn't want to leave the comfort of her bedroom, she doesn't want to face this fuck reality.

A flash of sunlight pours between the black curtains, the only source of light in the room right now dancing onto her messy desk. Steve would definitely scold her if he saw those pencils and papers spread all over the desk carelessly, she doesn't care, though, she finds herself into her own mess.

Then, she frowns at the sight of a book on the desk, she doesn't remember to buy anything, this one looks pretty old and used, though. She sits on the bed pulling the book from the desk, which makes some pencils fall on the carpet, she passes her hand over the red cover making the remnants of dust flew in the air and dance beautifully on the sunlight.

Around the world in eighty days, by Jules Verne, she reads.

She doesn't remember this book at all. Natasha opens it to see a beautiful and artistic handwriting that she had already seen so many times.

_Steven G, Rogers, 1984._

Alright. Perhaps, Steve had borrowed her the book and she never had the time to read it nor give it back to its owner. It happens a lot with her. However, she frowns when she sees the year besides the name. 1984, that's not possible. S.H.I.E.L.D. had found Captain America in the ice in 2011, this book could not be Steve's, someone was certainly playing a prank on her.

She flips through the book, smoothing the yellowed pages. It looks like a very important book for Steve, he must have read and reread it a thousand times, it looked quite used, there are marks all over the book, toothbrush cream, coffee and even sauce marks. She looks at the book affectionately. Then, an envelope falls from inside the book.

Natasha looks curious to the also yellowed envelope before reach out for it. There is nothing written in front of it, it's not even sealed and for a moment Natasha thinks to put it back, the book was Steve's after all, every content in it would be only for him, She should not poke one's nose into his secrets. But she can't stop wondering about how this book ends up in her room, and how all of it seems so odd.

She opens it taking out the letter along with two Pym particles. She looks curiously to the red things on her hands, then she put the particles aside on the bed and get the yellowed paper again, she opened the letter.

_Dear Natasha,_

_I have been delaying to write this letter for the past fourteen years, I guess I finally found the strength to do it today._

_It's a sunny and hot day in Malibu, it's, in fact, the best summer vacations, the day is just amazing and I've been watching Tony mowing the lawn for the past fifteen minutes until I decided that today is the day I would write it._

_Honestly, it wasn't easy years, but I finally have my lover by my side, I have Tony and that's enough. You were right when you told me that our love was mutual._

_I hope everyone is fine and I hope you could forgive us, me and Tony, for what happened, we could never predict it. So, let me get straight to the point, we are not coming back. Don't wait for us._

_My time GPS broke in an invasion to get these particles, and Tony couldn't fix it with the technology available in the seventies, and he chose not to come back without me, you know how stubborn he is._

_But it's okay, Nat. We're fine and you and the team will be fine without us. Tony and I know that you better than anyone can handle it. Maybe you are the only one with guts to handle all this outer space shit. You've done it for five years after the snap. Once, you said to me that if you moved on then who would do this job. I understand how important it is for you, and I know you can do it._

_God, I hope you understand we are not putting this burden on your back after we're gone._

_We got the Tesseract, we have it locked in a safe place in Malibu. It's an old bunker built by the Stark family. Tony set everything up so you can have access to it. Once, you get the space stone you bring everyone back safely, I know you'll find one way. Then, when you'll need to return the stones on their timelines, and the breach we created will be destroyed._

_Don't worry about us, we can't come back, but the others can._

_Yours, Steve and Tony._

Natasha wipes away the tears rolling down her cheeks. She takes her hands to her mouth in an attempt to muffle her sobs, although she knows that no one would heart it. She hold the letter against her chest. God, she will miss them so much, but she is really happy that they could find happiness in each other.

Now, it comes the hard part, which is to tell the rest of the team what had happened, and then she could think about the future. The Avengers future.

She went back to the main room, she hasn't seen any soul on the corridors on her way back here. So, she pressed the alarm button and waited for the Avengers assembled. The first one to get to the room was Rhodey, he looked confused at first but he sat down and waited along with Natasha, then Bruce and Thor came in followed by the blue female, Nebula, and the raccoon, Rocket, the last to arrive is Scott still in his pajamas.

"What is that about, Nat?" Rhodey was the first to talk.

"I found something, and I'd like to share it with you." She replies, by the confused looks she received, she added. "It's about Steve and Tony."

She unfolds the letter and reads it while holding the Pym particles on her left hand. She feels her eyes watery reading it again, but she keeps reading, swallowing the lump in her throat.

The room gets silent when she finishes the letter. Each one of them try to hide their emotions, but they all look sad, they had ended up losing three friends, after all. At least, Steve and Tony had a life together, a calm, happy and delightful one, she expects.

Rhodey is the one that talks again, he looks sad, too, but there is also an understanding on his countenance, he was ready to fight and complete the task that Steve and Tony had left for them.

"So, what are we gonna do?"

"We need to get the Tesseract," She replies quickly.

"I'm going with you." Rhodey states, and she nods. Then, she points to Rocket and Bruce.

"You two finish the gauntlet as fast as possible. We'll find a way to bring everyone back by tomorrow."

Thor turns to her, taking out his sunglasses.

"Okay, then what? Who's going to snap it?" Scott asks. "That thing is powerful." He throws his hands on the air looking exasperate.

"It nearly killed my father, if one of you snapped you're going to die for sure." Nebula says.

"No one is going to die anymore!" Bruce says punching the coffee table and broke it in the half, he stands up and look for both side of the room. "It has to be me. The radiation is most gamma." He quickly explains. Natasha nods understanding his point.

"That's not decided yet," Rhodey says. "First, we get the Tesseract, then we can come back to this discussion, is that okay with everyone?"

Everyone in the room nods affirmatively. Rhodey gets up.

"Let's go, Nat."

"Wait, where are you going?" Scott asks like he hadn't pay attention to what everyone was discussing.

Natasha looks at Rhodey determined. Nothing can stop them. They are going to save the universe. It's time to the Avengers assemble once more.

"Let's kick his ass."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of you who read this story, it was nice to write this during the last three months, I hope y'all enjoyed it. Thanks for all the kudos and comments!
> 
> As I've said before, I'm working in a new fic pairing Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch, in case you're interested I'll post it soon.


End file.
